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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



JAN 7 1887 



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A Series of oabbatl^ Qvenina Lectu 



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BY 



REV. HENRY TUCKLEY. 



lrjfrGaucfior) Jay ]g)isr)op J. IfJ. w alder). 

, JAN 7 1887/ 

CRANSTON AND 

NEW YORK : PHILLIPS & HUNT. 
1S86. 



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Copyright by 

HENRY TUCKLEY. 

1886. 



§^ 



\)'\s Dook is Dedicated, 



To the young people of Springfield, Ohio, and to my fellow- 
laborers for their welfare in the Churches and Schools 
of that city, particularly to those in the St. 
Paul Methodist Episcopal Church; 

To young people of both sexes everywhere ; 

To parents, teachers, and others, who are especially charged 
with the training of young people ; 

jFourtftlj?, 

To those faithful guardians and best friends of my own 
youth, a Christian Father and Mother ; 

&nb, HUstls, 

To my dear friend, the Rev. William Nast Brodbeck, of Boston, 

Mass., as a slight token at once of my attachment to 

him as a man, and of the lofty esteem in whieh 

I hold his work as a Christian Minister, 

put forth for the benefit of all classes, 

but especially in behalf of 

young people. 






7 



rl)c ejjopfs o| ffje dourer) srjo-ulcl Joe 
directed rjof or)ly io frje erjildrcr), Jouf 
pre^errjirjcrjily fo irje V ourjer l^eoplc 
vSrjo etr-e passing- irjro'uqr) Jascirjolioris 
and allurernenis, ernd wJr)o etpe Jseirjcr 
prepared Tor 1 irje duties o] r^aiurei? life. 
—Bishop Simpson. 



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,HESE lectures were prepared in the ordinary 
course of a very busy pastorate, and they are 
given to the public almost precisely as they 
were delivered. They came from a hot heart, 
and the author was afraid, that, if he undertook to 
trim them, their influence might be lessened. Pub- 
lication was first urged by individuals ; but after- 
wards the Official Board of the Church requested it, 
pledging such aid as might be necessary both in 
getting the work out, and in putting it in circulation. 
In grateful acknowledgment of the kind feelings 
prompting this action, and with special thanks to 
Bishop Walden for the Introduction he has kindly 
furnished, the book is now sent forth upon its mission. 
From the Table of Contents it will be seen that 
the lectures cover every department of the lives of 
young people. It is also believed, that, upon all 



2 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

topics treated, such counsels are given as can not 
fail to be beneficial to youth. It is hoped, too, that 
many may find profit in these pages who have 
passed from Life's Golden Morning into its glorious 
noontide, and that words in season may be found 
here and there for those even who are hastening 
toward the setting sun. H. T. 



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60NTENTS. 



Dangee Signals — Demand of the Young Man's Nature for 
Company — Necessity for Care and Effort in choosing 
Company — Early Effects of Depravity — Aggressiveness of 
the Wicked — Evils of Bad Company — Society sitting in 
Judgment — Hindrances to Success — Eequisites to Pros- 
perity — Why a Certain Young Man lost a Good Position — 
The Choice of Associates a Criterion of Character — 
Pope's View of Vice — Consequences of a Bad Moral En- 
vironment — The Way to benefit an Evil Companion — The 
Origin and Peril of Evil Thoughts — Warnings against the 
Libertine, the Tippler, the Swearer, the Liar, and the 
Scoffer — Special Advice respecting Courtship and Mar- 
riage — The Kind of Girls to shun and the Kind to 
seek — Where the Best Society may be found — The 
Best Companion — Surest Protection against Evil Asso- 
ciates, Pages 19-40 

II. 

I b e & OVLT )S$ iTJerr) errja rjis J000I5S. 

Relations of the Christian Minister to Young Men — The 
Young Man and his School-books — When these should 
be shelved — Love for Reading to be cultivated — Import- 

3 



CONTENTS. 

ance of Systematic Beading — Charming on the Pleasures 
of Reading— Lord Bacon on the Relative Value of Read- 
ing, Writing, and Conversation — Why Bad Books are 
Worse than Bad Companions — Effects of Pernicious Lit- 
erature as seen in Prisons and Reformatories — "Tasters" 
needed — Awful Effects of an Obscene Book — Warning 
against Books and Papers which extenuate Crime — Also, 
against those which give the Revolting Details of Crime — 
Trashy Reading — False Views of Life — Baneful Effects 
of " Blood-and-Thunder " Stories— Why Young Men 
should not read Skeptical Books — What they should 
read — Cautions as to Novel-reading — The Kind of Novels 
which may be read with Profit — Special Rules for Read- 
ing — The Bible — What it is, how to read it, and the 
Blessed Consequences of so doing, Pages 43-67 



in. 

Tr)e Vourvsr lTJetr) etrja r>is J@) err) <32.t?s. 

One Father's Darling — A Mother's Love, and the Thrilling 
Coincidence to which it led — Parental Anxiety — Absa- 
lom's Awful Fate — Analogy between Absalom and the 
Young Men of To-day — Why Young Men are in Danger — 
Lack of Experience — Life a Picture Gallery — Perils of 
Youthful Vigor— Special Snares for the Young — Life an 
Enchanted Hill— Dangers arising from false Principles — 
Consequences of underrating Honesty — Two Conspicuous 
Examples — Little Sins and what They lead to — The 
Circle which bounds Youthful Security — That Pernicious 
Wild-oats Theory —Seed-time and Harvest — Dangerous 
Places — The House of Death, and why it should be 
shunned — The Saloon and its Red Light — Gambling 
Dens, and the Steps which lead thereto — Places of Amuse- 
ment — Test Questions for the Theater — A Pleasant Ex- 
perience at Sea — The only Safe Pilot — The Disease and 
the Remedy — What to be most afraid of, . . Pages 71-97 



CONTENTS. 5 

IV. 

How One Young Man's Eyes were opened — Need of a Sim- 
ilar Operation upon the Young Men of To-day — The 
Spring-time of Opportunities — Symbolism of Nebuchad- 
nezzar's Image — Lessons from a Dead Millionaire — In- 
teresting Computation by DeQuincey— Lament of a Dy- 
ing Soldier — The Forks of the Eoad — Educational Ad- 
vantages of Past and Present compared — The Culpability 
of Ignorance — Early Manhood the Pouring-in Period — A 
Good Way to find out Things— Character and Reputa- 
tion — How they are related — Plato's Advice to One who 
had been slandered — Transcendent Value of a Good 
Character— Character as a Growth — Moments of Decis- 
ion in Life's Battle — Conditions upon which Success 
may be won — "Creatures of Circumstances" — Hard 
Work versus Genius — The Man in the White House — 
Grant's Crowning Faculty — Dizzy Heights not Desirable — 
The Moderate Altitudes which all may climb — Real 
Success Certain only to One Class — Wise Remark of the 
Philosopher Locke — Two Lives in Contrast — Importance 
of an Early Choice of Religion, Pages 101-127 

v. 

©up ©iris : Wljeif u$ill Y^ 2 ^ 1 * Stjoice ]Sa? 

Paul as an Example to Modern Ministers — Woman's Free- 
dom and the Responsibilities arising therefrom — Woman 
as a controlling Force in the World — Illustrations of 
Womanly Influence — The Intellectual Sphere— Import- 
ance to Girlhood of Early Schooling — Woman's Mission, 
and how she may best fit herself to fulfill it — Girls 
who have "finished their Education" — The Best Ac- 
complishments — The Choice of our Girls wuthin the Sec- 
ular Sphere— Why Girls should prepare to be Self-sup- 
porting — The Busy Women of the New Testament — 
The Girls who are most honored— One Cause of Sin and 



6 CONTENTS. 

Folly in Girls — Changelessness of Woman's Nature — The 
Sphere of Labor in which Women most excel — Woman's 
Choice within the Social Realm — How to secure a Good 
Husband — Why so Many Marriages are Unhappy — Their 
Bridal sometimes a Burial to Girls — Folly of trying to 
catch a Husband — The Kind of Young Men to avoid — 
Warnings against the Dude, the Spendthrift, the Swearer, 
and the Drinker — What Girls should do with the Young 
Man addicted to his Cups — The Kind of Young Man 
to marry— The Spiritual Realm — Something one Young- 
Lady had not thought of — The Artful Abbot — Reasons 
for choosing Christ — Womanly Aspirations and the 
Christian Religion— The Loveliest of Human Characters — 
Two Touching Death Scenes, Pages 133-160 

VI ' 

\J ®ux)Q^ Jfeople <zti p.orr)e. 

General Rule for Home Life — First Institution framed by 
the Almighty for Man's Benefit — The Great Lack of Pagan 
and Heathen Nations — France and England in Contrast — 
Chief Defenses of the British Empire— The American 
Home— Where the Best Friends are found — Possibilities 
of Happiness and Usefulness presented in the Home of 
One's Youth— The Tender Touch of a Mother's Hand- 
Influence of the Early Home upon Character and Des- 
tiny—Influence of Young People in determining what 
their Early Home shall be— Advice to Parents on the Duty 
of making Home Pleasant— " She Always made Home 
Happy" — How the Young sometimes cast Shadows over 
the Plome— A Peep behind the Scenes ; or, how some 
Young People appear in the Home Circle— The Chief 
Cause of Domestic Unhappiness— Requisites to House- 
hold Bliss— How Young People may contribute to the 
Attractiveness of Home— General Rule for Home Amuse- 
ments—The Need and Blessedness of Piety at Home- 
Why some Young People are not at Home— The Church 
as a Home— Our Final Home in Heaven, . Pages 165-189 



CONTENTS. 7 

VII. 

Pleasures and Delights of School Life — Freedom from Care — 
Compensations of those who are Self-supporting at 
School — The Tender Regard which Age shows for Youth, 
and what Young People owe to Age in Return — Pleasures 
of Learning — School Companions — "Let me go to her; 
she was my School Friend " — A Typical American Girl in 
the White House — Ambitions incidental to School Life — 
Youthful Dreaming — Great Men in Embryo — " Who can 
tell what I may be?" — The Wisdom of trying to be 
happy — Duties of School Life — Why all who can should 
take a College Course — The only Sure Way to get on in 
Life — Advantages of the Elective System in School 
Studies — Locke on "The Business of an Education" — 
Education life-long — Good Story by Mr. Spurgeon — Duties 
of Pupils to their Teachers, to their Parents, and to one 
another — Exalted Vocation of the Teacher — Why Parents 
deserve Gratitude — The Boy who pities the Ignorance of 
his Father— An Interesting Catalogue of "Don'ts" — The 
Last Analysis of Wisdom — The Final Commencement Ex- 
ercises — The Bell of Duty always ringing, . Pages 193-216 

VIII. 

Vour)er Tfeople erf QCoi?^. 

General Rule and Special Lessons in regard to our Life 
Work — Seeking an Easy Time in Life — An Important 
Law of Nature — The Hard Work of trying to live without 
Work — A Novel Plan for stimulating to Activity — A 
Sponge, or a Spring, which? — Importance of acquiring 
Habits of Industry in Youth — Helping Mother — The 
Piano and the Cook Stove in Contrast — Tribute to the 
Self-supporting College Boy — The Greatest Need of 
Youth — Self-denial and Hard Labor as Factors in pre- 
paring for a Career of Usefulness — Bonaparte at School — 



CONTENTS. 

The Great Men of Scripture— Toil not Ignoble— The Kind 
of Men promoted by Providence to Posts of Honor and 
Eesponsibility — Christ as a Worker — The True Secret of 
Success in Life — Choosing a Vocation — Callings which 
should be avoided — The Call to the Ministry — Caution 
against Two Extremes — Millionaires and their Miseries — 
Rewards of Tireless Diligence— Cautions against doing 
Business solely on Faith, and other Follies— -Choosing a 
Partner— How to find True Rest— Young People as 
Workers in Moral Reforms— A Boat Ride and its Les- 
sons — Immortality of Good Deeds, .... Pages 219-243 



IX. 

<y® ur )|| ]f«®ple erf Ifl®^' 

Play which meant Murder — Why Young People ought to 
Play— Letting off the Steam of Youthful Vigor— Old 
Heads and Young Shoulders a Misfit— Brutal Diversions 
of the Past — How our Anglo-Saxon Ancestors were ac- 
customed to amuse themselves — Why the Amusement 
Question must always be an Unsettled One — Sports which 
are inimical to Health — Debasing Pleasures of the Sen- 
sualist — Amusements which occupy the Debatable 
Ground — Dancing, the Card Table, and the Theater — 
Tendencies and Consequences of Worldly Amusements — 
Injurious Excesses — Evil Company — Card Playing and 
Dancing at Home — Where these Practices lead — A Strong 
Indictment against the Theater — Loose Morals of the 
Profession — Effect of Worldly Amusements on Personal 
Piety — Dancing and Religion; will they Mix? — Church 
Members who are at a Discount — Progressive Euchre and 
Progressive Christianity — The Theater and the Sabbath — 
Immorality of Modern Plays— Test Questions — A Good 
General Rule— Something a Fashionable Lady had for- 
gotten — Pleasures Avhich never surfeit, . . Pages 247-272 



CONTENTS. 9 

Voura jfcG-ple. it) ©ociefy. 

Definition of Society — Proper Attitude toward Society — 
Temptations presented in this Realm— Influence of So- 
ciety in molding Character — Where Young People find 
their Life-partners — Sphere of Life's Grandest Opportu- 
nities—Society as an Organism for the Spread of Human 
Influence — Safeguards of Social Intercourse — Life on the 
Atlantic— Surest Method of finding Good Associates — 
Society's Slaves— Gossips and Scandal Mongers— Society 
as a Thief of Time— The Cynic— Dudes and Flirts- 
Paupers upon Society — People whose Feelings are easily 
hurt — How to be above Slights — Masquerading in Bor- 
rowed Characters— A Butterfly, or a Bee, which ?— Saying 
No with a big N— The Honor of being Singular— Need 
of Reformers in Society — Depraved Men and fallen 
Women ; how they should be Treated — How Society 
trusts us — Value of a Civil Tongue — How to be Beauti- 
ful—The Model Lady and True Gentleman — Advantages 
of going into Society as a Christian — The real " Kings " 
and "Queens" of Society — The Society Belle — Our So- 
ciety Life what we make it, Pages 275-303 

XI. 

^axirjq Tfeople. ir) ftje ^rjupcrj. 

Looking for a King— Man's Choice not always God's— Rulers 
wanted in the Realm of Morals— Young People specially 
called — Relation of Young People to the Jewish Church — 
Bible Instances of Early Piety — Christ's Interest in 
Young People — Special Difficulties and Temptations be- 
setting this Class — Why Special Efforts are needed in 
Behalf of the Young — Victims of False Notions— Anti- 
dotes to the Pleasures of the World — Needs of Young 
People within the Social and Intellectual Realms — How 
these should be met — Benefits of a Church Lyceum — 



10 CONTENTS. 

Salvation first — Final Appeal to Young People — Religion 
their Great Need— Its Restraints and Protections — How 
Early Life is "trembling with Destinies " — The Choice of 
Religion preparing for other Decisions — Importance of 
Right Beginnings — Deplorable Effects of Youthful Trans- 
gression — Why Young People need the Church — Crav- 
ings of the Youthful Nature — How these are satisfied in 
Religion — The Soul crying out for God — The only Expe- 
rience which never disappoints — Best Time to start in 
the Christian Pathway — How Young People may con- 
quer two Worlds— The Human Heart in Middle Life — 
Folly of Delay — The Wonderful Exchanges made when 
Sin is abandoned and Religion chosen — Necessity of 
Church Membership — How those who are in Life's Golden 
Morning may remain in it forever, . . . Pages 307-339 



llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 



lNTR0DUeTI0N. 



,HE following Lectures were prepared by their 
(5Ju Author to interest and instruct the young people 

tof his congregation ; they are now put forth in 
book form to reach a wider circle of the same 
class. The statement of this purpose, in view of the 
marked impression made by their delivery, is all the 
introduction that is needful. What I may say is 
prompted by my interest in every indication of increas- 
ing concern in the Church for the moral well-being of 
the young people, and by my friendly regard for the 
young Author, who, diligently improving his opportu- 
nities, has acquired much of the skill and force of a 
ready writer, while he has steadily advanced in effective- 
ness as a preacher and pastor. 

In the Lectures to Young Men the Author deals 
plainly with those matters that go very far in shaping 
each one's career. Young men might see that their 
way is beset with dangers, and yet how unconscious 
most of them seem to be of the evils that lurk on every 
hand. The young man's best friend is he who leads 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

him to ponder these dangers — who convinces him that 
they are real and imminent, and, at the same time, 
deceptive and powerful. These lectures do not treat 
of ideal but of actual conditions; the Author speaks 
of society as it is — as the young man will find it to be, 
and points out its dangers with the faithfulness of a 
friend and the interest of a brother. 

Prevalent as evil may be, there are helpful influences 
on every hand, and enough of them within the reach of 
each young man, to enable him to " make his life sub- 
lime." These influences are not so obvious as those 
that combine for his destruction, neither do they address 
his senses with the same alluring charm — but they do 
exist — they are potential — they may be reached and 
utilized, and to him who seeks his safety in them, they 
become a panoply, an inspiration, and a joy. The skill- 
ful teacher is he who arrests and holds the young man's 
attention, while he points out, with equal fidelity, the 
paths of danger and of safety. Our Author appreciates 
his opportunity and duty as a teacher, and in these Lec- 
tures takes his place as a friend at the young man's 
side, with practical lessons which are the result of dis- 
criminating observation and conscientious study. 

The young woman is not exposed to so great or so 
many dangers as beset the pathway of her brother, but 
she is in the period of her life that almost invariably 
determines her character, and controls her destiny. The 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

lecture to " Our Girls" presents lessons that can but be 
helpful in conveying correct views of life in its highest 
relations, and in fortifying the girl's hope and purpose 
to attain to a true and noble womanhood. 

The six lectures to Young People are of great value. 
In speaking of Young People, as a class, I mean those 
from sixteen to twenty-five years of age. This class 
comprises one-fifth of the entire population of our 
country — or nearly twelve millions of persons — and 
these millions are about equally divided between the 
sexes. A large proportion of our youth leave school at 
sixteen, and most of them are settled in the relations 
and pursuits of life at twenty-five, hence the significance 
of the intervening years, and the correctness of grouping 
them in a single period. The cautious parent may not 
allow that the sixteen-year-old son is a young man, but 
such are the educating forces of society now-a-days, and 
such the development under them, that youth merges 
into early manhood all too soon. 

Twelve millions of Young People ! Within a score 
of years they are to be heads of families, and are to 
hold influential positions in every profession, and calling, 
and association in our country ; and the results of their 
influence in any and every relation and position will be 
determined by their attention, or lack of attention, to 
such lessons as are faithfully and forcefully inculcated 
in this Volume. 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

These facts emphasize the duty of the Church — all 
Christian Churches — to give greater attention to these 
Young People. As relates to the Church, where are 
they? In the Sunday-schools? The children are there. 
In our congregations ? Scarcely a tithe of them ! Are 
not millions of them passing through the critical and 
cod trolling period without any direct aid from the 
Church, in determining the real issues of life? How 
shall the Church reach these millions? Organize asso- 
ciations in their behalf? By no means. The Church 
is God's appointed Association to bring helpful and sav- 
ing influences to every class. 

Let Christians ponder these momentous facts; let 
them think of the millions named, and their moral 
wants, until the duty of the Church be clear. The Vol- 
ume before us suggests the interest every pastor should 
take in this subject. May the same interest so pervade 
the Church, that soon, to her men and women of faith 
and prayer and deeds, no work of love shall be more 
blessed and hopeful than that in behalf of the Young 
People of our land. 

J. M. WALDEN. 

Cincinnati, Dec 7, 




61 



Part I. 



^0 YeuNG FRen 



~sfe- =- — ! ^~ 



T^ 



I. 



(90NTE NTS. 



ANGER Signals. — Demand of the young man's nature for 
company. — Necessity for care and effort in choosing com- 
pany. — Early effects of depravity. — Aggressiveness of the 
wicked. — Evils of bad company. — Society sitting in judg- 
ment. — Hindrances to success. — Requisites to prosperity. — 
Why a certain young man lost a good position. — The choice 
of associates a criterion of character. — Pope's view of vice. — 
Consequences of a bad moral environment. — The way to bene- 
fit an evil companion. — The origin and peril of evil thoughts. — 
Warnings against the libertine, the tippler, the swearer, the 
liar, and the scoffer. — Special advice respecting courtship and 
marriage. — The kind of girls to shun and the kind to seek. — 
Where the best society may be found. — The best companion. — 
Surest protection against evil associates. 



IllllPllllllllllllllltlllllllli 




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\\)e Youna Man and r>\s Oompany, 



My son, if sinners entiee thee, consent thou not." 

— Proverbs i, 10. 

k2HIS is an appeal to young men to avoid evil 
(dP associations. It proceeds, you will observe, 

tfrom a person of exalted rank and of wide 
experience ; one who knew well the blessed- 
ness of serving God, and who was equally aware 
of the bitterness of serving the world. You will 
also observe that it is a warning against the partic- 
ular evil which led to Solomon's own downfall. 

Out at sea one observes light-ships and floating 
buoys here and there. They are to warn us that 
danger lurks beneath, and in not a few instances 
their presence is a reminder that ere these safe- 
guards were provided, some hapless ship was 
grounded, possibly destroyed, by these lurking 

perils. Our text is a life-buoy floated by Solomon 

19 



20 THE YOUNG MAN 

over the dangerous rock of Bad Company, and its 
admonitions are all the more impressive from the 
fact that it marks the place where his own craft 
went to pieces. " My son, if sinners entice thee, 
consent thou not." 

In considering the Young Man and his Com- 
pany, the first thought arising is that the young 
man will have company. 

He begins to mingle in company very early. 
The little boy has his mates at school. He plays 
with these at recess, and exchanges visits with them 
after dismissal. This, too, is the commencement of 
a pairing-off process which never terminates. Yes, 
the young man will have company. Where is the 
college boy who has not his chum? Walk the 
streets at night, and observe the large numbers 
of young men you meet. How rarely do we find 
one who is alone ! They go in pairs mostly, 
though sometimes in larger groups. Out of the 
hundreds present, how few young men came alone 
to this church to-night! 

The young man will have company. It is nat- 
ural ; it is inevitable, and, within proper limits, it 
is right. Too much privacy is not good for our 
youths. It fosters melancholy, and results often in 
effeminacy ; sometimes even in madness. If there 



HIS COMPANY. 21 

is danger in company, so, also, is it dangerous for 
the young man to keep entirely aloof from com- 
pany. It is not good for hinr to be alone. 

Our next observation is, that, unless care be 
taken to prevent it, the young nian\s company is 
likely to be bad. 

One reason for this is that the young man has 
a depraved nature. There are within him stronger 
affinities for evil than for good. If these evil pro- 
pensities be not curbed by careful training and a 
strong will, they are sure to gain the mastery. In 
other words, if the young man be not schooled to 
love the pure and noble, he is likely to love the 
vile and the ignoble, and to seek companionship 
with such as these. The earth's soil will grow 
thorns and weeds spontaneously, but a useful crop 
has to be planted and cultivated. So with the 
heart of the young man ; so with every heart, for 
" the heart is deceitful above all things, and des- 
perately wicked." 

Another reason why care is necessary if we 
would avoid undesirable companionships, is, that 
wickedness is aggressive, whereas goodness too 
often shrinks from view, concealed by its own mod- 
esty. Bad people put themselves in our way more 

than the good do. They are more forward and 

'3 



22 THE YOUNG MAN. 

obtrusive. This is apparent wherever young men 
congregate. The loudest talkers, the most conspic- 
uous, those who do the most to attract attention 
and to secure influence over others — who are they? 
You know, my young friends, that these are the 
boys, usually, who take pride in wickedness — 
smarties, scoffers, blasphemers, often. Take college 
life as an example. You can easily get in with 
those who are bent on mischief, and you will soon 
learn who these are ; but the young man of ster- 
ling merit, of worthy aim, and of pure and studious 
habits — him you will probably have to seek out. 
If you want his companionship you will have to 
court it. 

Up to a certain period, this grave question, 
with whom the young man shall keep company, is 
settled for him by others. The parents or guard- 
ians settle it, or, at least, they should do so. There 
comes a time, however — all too soon in that anxious 
mother's view — when the youth begins to choose 
for himself. Most of the youug men before me 
have reached and passed that period. They are 
their own masters, the arbiters of their own destiny 
in this matter. To these I make my special appeal 
to-night. " If sinners entice thee, consent thou 
not." They will entice thee, and unless a firm 



HIS COMPANY. 23 

resistance be made, they will ensnare and ruin thee — 
will drag thee, with themselves, into destruction. 
On the other hand, if your companionships are to be 
good and helpful — such as will bring you honor 
and lead to your salvation — care must be taken, 
judgment exercised, and, probably, a diligent 
and constant search prosecuted to find such asso- 
ciates; for we reaffirm, with increased emphasis, 
that unless the greatest prudence be brought into 
operation to prevent such a result, the young man's 
company at the present day is almost certain to 
be bad. 

Convinced that if we would avoid bad company, 
we must bring the will into play, and must actively 
and constantly shun it, let us consider now a few 
of the evils resulting from bad company. 

One of the desirable things of life is the 
good opinion of our fellow-men. This is not the 
greatest good of existence ; but it is a boon worth 
having and worth striving for. Of course, if cir- 
cumstances should ever arise in which this could 
be secured only by the compromise of principle, it 
would behoove us, in that case, to let the world's 
good-will go, doing right though our best friends 
turned against us. Such circumstances, however, 
are in this day of rare occurrence. Usually, the 



24 THE YOUNG MAN. 

judgment of mankind upon human conduct is cor- 
rect. The better elements of society will always 
approve the good and condemn the bad. Let our 
young men remember this. Those who despise the 
good opinion of their fellow-men are fools, to say 
the least, and they are in danger of becoming 
knaves. I charge you, my young friends, to seek 
two things. Seek His favor, which is better than 
life, and seek to enjoy continually, so far as you can 
obtain it by an upright walk, the approval of the 
thoughtful and good amongst your fellow-creatures. 
But in order to this you must shun questionable 
associations, for the world will judge you no less 
by the company you keep than by the words you 
utter or the deeds you do. 

Another worthy, aim of youth is success. You 
should strive to get on in the world. Whatever 
calling you adopt, endeavor to excel in it. Aim 
at a high mark. Most young men do this. The 
trouble is, how 7 ever, that while we covet success, 
we do not pursue the course necessary to win it. 
We enter the race and look longingly at the goal ; 
but when it comes to running in such a way as to 
get there, we find we can not do it, we are so 
heavily weighted. 

Of all the weights which young men carry in 



HIS COMPANY. 25 

the race of life, none, perhaps, more seriously 
impede their progress than bad company. Take 
the boy at school. His success there depends upon 
his application to study; but unworthy company 
obtrudes itself, and it not only steals his time, but 
vitiates and weakens his mind, rendering successful 
study impossible. Take the young man in the 
office, or store, or workshop. If he is to rise, he 
must have credit and capital and capability ; but 
see how bad company will prevent him from ac- 
quiring these. Credit means the confidence of 
business men; but how can any one have con- 
fidence in those whose associations are not good? 
Capital means the practice of frugality ; but who 
ever heard of a young man addicted to bad com- 
pany saving any of his money ? Capability for the 
management of large affairs requires self-control, 
self-denial, and the acquisition of much practical 
knowledge; but what does the young man who 
runs in bad company know about such things as 
these, and what time or inclination has he to ac- 
quire them? Thus, such a young man, while he 
dreams of success, and hopes to realize it, is pur- 
suing a course which makes his advancement in life 
utterly impossible. He is running in a race, and 
he deliberately handicaps himself with associates 



26 THE YOUNG MAN 

which hold him back. He wants to fly, and the 
first thing he does is to clip his own wings. 

Many a young man has lost a good situation 
through bad company. The place was one of trust ; 
one which involved the keeping of accounts and 
the handling of money. No dishonesty had been 
detected, but it was found that the young man went 
in questionable company after business hours, and, 
naturally, his employers became afraid of him. 
And as good places have been lost in this way, so, 
again, has many an aspiring young man been pre- 
vented, by the company he kept, from securing 
such a position. Take one illustration. A young 
man applied for a position in a bank. He was of 
excellent family, of fine education, of good morals, 
so far as known, and was well recommended. His 
application was taken under advisement, and his 
conduct was watched. Nothing against him ; not a 
thing; only this, that the company in which he 
spent his evenings was not just right. That, how- 
ever, spoke volumes to those bank directors, and, 
of coarse, the unfortunate young man was not 
engaged. 

It is said of Pythagoras that he never admitted 
a young man to his school until he had first 
inquired who were his intimates; and this, rest 



HIS COMPANY. 27 

assured, is how sensible men of business are acting 
to-day toward the young men who profess an eager- 
ness to get on in the world. They want to know 
who your intimates are — what company you keep. 
If your associations are good, they will have hope 
for you, and will repose confidence in you ; if they 
are bad, they will be afraid of you, and will have 
no use for you. For these reasons we plead again, 
in the words of our text, " If sinners entice thee, 
consent thou not." 

As a matter of course the fear which men have 
for the young man who keeps bad company is based 
upon the assumption that sooner or later evil asso- 
ciations poison the morals and undermine the char- 
acter ; which they unquestionably do. It is un- 
questionable, indeed, that those who choose bad 
persons for their companions are already bad them- 
selves in heart. The evil may not yet have broken 
out ; but it is there ; and it only awaits a strong 
temptation or a favorable inducement, to assert 
itself. Even, however, though this were not the 
case; even granting that a young man might be 
perfectly pure and upright, as spotless as the snow 
from heaven, when he first espoused an evil com- 
panion, how long would it be, think you, at the 
farthest, until the whiteness of that virgin soul 



28 THE YOUNG MAN 

would be soiled by contact with the other's vile- 
ness, and until that blameless character would be 
marred and ruined by habits copied from the base 
acquaintance ? 

There is a Latin proverb which says, " If you 
live always with those who are lame, you will your- 
self learn to limp." The idea is that we can not 
help imbibing the spirit and copying the conduct 
of those with whom we associate. Whether we de- 
sign to do this or not, we do it. It may be done 
unconsciously ; but that does not lessen the effect, 
nor exempt us in any degree from the awful con- 
sequences. We necessarily breathe the atmosphere 
of our immediate environment. Our souls do, no 
less than our bodies. If, therefore, that atmosphere 
be impregnated with pestilence, what else can we 
expect than that we shall fall victims, erelong, to 
physical or moral disease ? Exceedingly danger- 
ous, too, are evil associations because they make us 
familiar with evil, and because familiarity with evil 
tends, of necessity, to lessen our repugnance toward 
it, and to throw us off our guard against its insid- 
ious attacks. As Pope says: 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 



HIS COMPANY. 29 

Let me warn you, too, against the fatal notion 
that you can make the bad better by keeping com- 
pany with them. Such results may follow in ex- 
ceptional instances ; but usually, almost invariably, 
the effect will be just the opposite ; that is, instead 
of your example making them better, theirs will 
make you worse. If you would really benefit a 
bad companion, cut his acquaintance. Tell him 
candidly that you disapproye of his evil ways ; that 
you can not afford to even be a witness to his con- 
duct, much less a sharer in it, and that you propose 
to have nothing further to do with him until he 
reforms. That 's the way to act toward an un- 
worthy associate if you are really sincere in want- 
ing to save him. Any other course is fraught with 
danger both to him and to your own soul. If you 
continue to associate with him, the chances are, a 
thousand to one, that you will suffer. You may 
lift him up — it is not impossible ; it has been done 
before now ; but he is far more likely to drag 
you down. 

Take equal quantities of wine and vinegar and 
mix them together, and what will you find ? Will 
you not find, as some one has tersely put it, that 
instead of the wine sweetening the vinegar, the 
vinegar will haye soured the wine? Turn twenty 



30 THE YOUNG MAN 

well men into a pest-house where lies only one man 
sick with a contagious disease, and what result will 
you nod there? Does it require a prophet to fore- 
tell that, in such a case as that, instead of the well 
twenty curing the sick one, they would be infinitely 
more likely to become companions with him in 
suffering and danger? 

Behold, then, in such plain cases as these, a 
vivid illustration of what the young man may ex- 
pect — any young man — who continues, from what- 
soever motive, to expose his character to detriment 
and to risk the salvation of his soul by associating 
with bad company. Therefore we say again, " If 
sinners entice thee, consent thou not." 

If for no other reason, keep out of bad com- 
pany, I beg you, because if you do not, you will 
see and hear things which you can never erase from 
memory, and which, as they must always be remem- 
bered, will always be a source of shame and trouble 
to you, if not, indeed, an ever-present temptation. 
One of our greatest moral perils arises from evil 
thoughts. These are evils, too, which it is almost 
impossible to control. These thoughts, once started, 
seem to illustrate in morals the law of perpetual 
motion. They throb on through all the years, and 
often, alas! we are compelled to listen to the 



HIS COMPANY. 31 

ticking of these clocks of memory, and to feel the 
vibrations of their pendulum, even in our dreams. 
There is not a man here that does not know some- 
thing that he wishes he could forget, but can not; 
not one that did not hear something in youth which 
has ever since been a curse to him. 

Whatever you do, my young friends, have no 
fellowship with either the libertine, the tippler, 
or the profane swearer. Keep yourselves pure. 
Your happiness, your usefulness, your safety, your 
strength, all depend upon this. And if you are to 
be pure yourselves, nothing is more certain than 
that you must keep away from those who are not 
pure. Moral impurity is more contagious than 
small-pox or cholera, and far more likely than 
either to lead to death. Solomon's warnings upon 
this point are as forcible as they are frequent. The 
wise man knew what he was talking about, too, and 
his deliberate judgment was that when a young 
man came under the spell of this evil, there was 
scarcely any hope for him. " None that go in this 
way," he says, " return again ; neither take they 
hold of the paths of life." 

Equally dangerous, too, is the drink habit. 
Yield to this temptation, and your future at once 
becomes shrouded in uncertainty, if not enveloped 



32 THE YOUNG MAN 

in gloom. Become a tippler, and your prospects in 
life are discounted at least fifty per cent. Continue 
the habit of tippling, and you are almost sure to 
become a drunkard. Become a drunkard, and bet- 
ter for yourself, better for your friends, better for 
society, better for all concerned, had you never 
been born. I warn you, young friends, against the 
occasional glass; for in that, simple and harmless 
though it may seem, lurks the awful possibility at 
once of a drunkard's life and of a drunkard's doom . 
And in warning you against the occasional glass, I 
must put you on your guard against company that 
is favorable to such indulgences. Not only shun 
the glass, but shun the associations which lead to 
the glass. 

I warn you, also, against companions that use 
profane language. Such persons not only violate 
one of God's commandments, but they equally vio- 
late the first principles of gentility. The profane 
man is usually a passionate man, is always a wicked 
man, and is frequently a man of unclean habits. 
Have nothing to do with such a person. Of course, 
if you are in business, or in the same house with 
such a man, you will necessarily have to endure 
him. But whatever you do, do n't make a com- 
panion of such a man. 



HIS COMPANY. 33 

Let me warn you, furthermore, against compan- 
ions whom you find to be untruthful. The man 
who will prevaricate upon one subject will do so 
upon any other, if a sufficient inducement be held 
out. Such a man is not reliable. The one defect 
of lying stamps him as being below par. He will 
deceive you ; he will corrupt you ; therefore, have 
nothing to do with him. 

The scoffer is another bad character you should 
shun. This man has no respect for age, no respect 
for virtue, no respect for principle, no respect for 
religion, no respect for God. Life to him is a uni- 
versal masquerade. Honesty is policy merely, and 
goodness simply a pretense. Shun this man. There 
is nothing in him. He is a dangerous teacher and 
a disagreeable companion. ]NTo man can be a true 
friend who scoffs at honesty. The man who would 
rob you of your reverence for religion, far from 
being your friend, is a deadly enemy. 

I warn you, too, against what is commonly called 
gay company. From gayety to wickedness is but a 
short step. Often, indeed, gayety is wickedness. It 
always is when it draws the mind from God, and 
puts the place of amusement in advance of the 
Church. This reminds me, too, that a good way to 
avoid gay company is to shun gay places. " If 



34 THE YOUNG MAN 

sinners entice thee, consent thou not." Have all 
the innocent pleasure you can get ; but beware of 
sin and of every thing that leads to sin. Keep out 
of the way of temptation ; shun the appearance of 
evil. May God help you so to do ! 

In discoursing upon the young man and his 
company, we must not ignore the fact that most 
young men are thrown more or less into the society 
of the opposite sex. 

I have spoken of boys pairing off with boys. 
In a few years after that operation many of them 
pair off with girls. This also is natural; and, 
within proper limits, is a course which parents 
should encourage rather than frown upon. 

Now, I like a young man who is fond of the 
society of innocent women, and I maintain that 
almost any young man is safer in that society than 
in any other he can possibly enjoy on this earth. 
There is an appellation in vogue, which some re- 
gard as a term of reproach, but which, when used 
in its best sense, is a title of honor — I refer to the 
phrase, " He is a lady's man." To the credit of 
both parties — the women equally with the men — I 
want to say, from my observation, and I think you 
will bear me out in it, that usually, in the ordinary, 
every-day walks of life, " ladies' men " are men not 



HIS COMPANY. 35 

only of fair looks but of fair morals. They are 
both tidy in person and clean in life. In a word, 
they are usually gentlemen, no less in character 
than in appearance and manners. I repeat, there- 
fore, that for a young man to incline toward the 
society of'good women, be they maidens or matrons, 
is a good sign ; for in such society he will hear 
nothing to harm him, but will, on the contrary, 
move amongst influences calculated to make him 
good and noble. 

To the young man who seeks a companion of 
the female sex with a view to ultimate wedlock, we 
have this to say: Beware of the girl addicted to 
display, for that means extravagance, and this is not 
only a foe to prosperity in the married state, but it 
frequently renders domestic happiness impossible. 
Beware, again, of the giddy, worldly girl, the girl 
whose head is full of parties and amusements, whose 
brains are chiefly in her feet, and whose heart is set 
upon pleasure. There are noble exceptions, of 
course, but usually such girls are very shallow, 
very heartless, and very useless, when it comes to 
the practical business of life. Beware, also, of the 
girl who disobeys her mother, or who, in any way, 
deliberately grieves that mother's heart ; for a girl 
who can do this, without prompt and bitter repent- 



36 THE YOUNG MAN 

ance, is capable of any cruelty, and is no fit companion 
for a worthy young man, either temporarily or for life. 

Beware particularly of the flirt — the girl who is 
fond of being on the streets, and of attracting 
notice there. That girl is in danger. To link your 
life to such a person would be to invite disaster. 
"If sinners entice thee consent thou not." 

Let me warn you also against selecting a girl 
merely for her beauty of person, or for the money 
she may be reputed to have ; for that beauty will 
fade, and much of it indeed may be artificial; that 
wealth may never materialize, or if it does, it may 
do so only to curse you. I would not, of course, 
disparage either money or good looks. What I 
desire is to warn you against making either of them 
an object of primary consideration in such cases. 
Instead of this, my young friends, make character 
the test. Look for a girl of good principle, of pure 
tastes, of practical accomplishments, and of sterling 
virtue. Link your destines to such a girl, and 
though she have not a penny, she shall bring you a 
fortune ; and whether she be beautiful or homely in 
features, in mind, in spirit, and in the consecration 
of her life to your good, she shall be to you the 
brightest and grandest woman in the universe — a 
very angel upon earth. 



HIS COMPANY. 37 

In warning you against companions who are 
bad, our main object, of course, is to guide and 
stimulate you in the selection of good company. 
Your associates will do much to fashion your char- 
acter. They will determine largely the sphere you 
are to fill in life. Companions are as a ladder to 
us. When good, this ladder points upward, and we 
may ascend by it to honor and usefulness and glory. 
When bad, it leads us downward, by long and sad 
steps, into disgrace and perdition. " If sinners en- 
tice thee consent thou not," but instead of this, 
choose for your associates the pure, the sober, the 
truthful, the industrious, the devout, the wise, and 
the grave ! Saying with the poet : 

Not with the light and vain, 
The man of idle feet and wanton eyes ; 

Not with the world's gay, ever-smiling train ; 
My lot he with the grave and wise. 

Not with the trifler gay, 

To whom life seems but sunshine on the wave ; 
Not with the empty idler of the day ; 

My lot be with the wise and grave. 

I counsel you especially, my young friends, to 
seek companionship with the people of God. You 
will find in the Church the best society on earth. 
Christ's followers are the children of a King. They 

are in exile, to be sure ; but they have the royal 

4 



38 THE YOUNG MAN 

nature within them, and the royal resources to draw 
upon. It is certain, too, that after a while they 
will enter upon their royal possessions; will all 
wear crowns and will all sit upon thrones. If you 
want the best company — the very best — here it is — 
in the Church — in the society of the children of 
God. Pure company, this, for the Man of Calvary 
has washed them from sin — safe company, for God 
himself is their keeper, and He who keepeth Israel 
neither slumbers nor sleeps. 

Above all, be sure that you take Christ to be 
your companion. 

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother, and that friend is Jesus. We commonly 
think of Christ as being a long way off, but He is 
very near. You can have Him to dwell with you — 
to walk and talk with you. It seems wonderful, 
all this, but it is true. It involves an infinite con- 
descension, but He is equal to it. We think it 
marvelous when we hear, as we do occasionally, 
that the Queen of England or the Emperor of 
Germany has entered the dwelling, and ministered 
for a few moments at the bedside of some sick 
peasant. But here is the King of Heaven — the 
King of all kings — entering our dwellings, and 
making himself, not an occasional, but a constant, 






HIS COMPANY. 39 

comforter to us. I beg you to-night, young friends, 
to let this dear Savior come in. 

Yes, here is a friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother — closer than any earthly companion; for 
there will be times when these can not be with 
you, and when they could not help you even though 
they were in your company ; but this friend will be 
always present and always able to render assistance. 
Never will you weep that His eye will not moisten 
with tears; no wound of the soul will you ever 
contract that He can not cure ! Your guide and 
counselor in the activities of the busy day, no less 
will He be your guardian and solace in every dark 
night of sorrow. At last, when all earthly friends 
have grasped your hand in a final adieu, this friend 
will pilot you safely over the turbulent river of 
death, and land you in triumph on the shores of 
eternal glory. This is the sort of companion Jesus 
will be to you. I beg you, therefore, to take Him 
into your confidence. "If sinners entice thee, con- 
sent thou not ; " but when Jesus wooes, yield and be 
saved; when He knocks, as I'm sure He is knock- 
ing to-night, open and let Him come in. 

Remember, my young friends, that if you are 
ruined by bad company, it will be your own fault. 
Evil associates can never ensnare you unless you 



40 THE YOUNG MAN 

consent. We sometimes say of young men who 
come to disgrace, that, had it not been for wicked 
company, such a calamity would not have befallen 
them ; and, somehow, we blame the company more 
than the individuals themselves. But this view is 
at once erroneous and dangerous. The fact is that 
that young man was ruined because he consented to 
be ruined. Others may be censurable, but none so 
much as he, for bad company harmed him only be- 
cause he consented to mingle in it. 

" If sinners entice thee, consent thou not." 
The surest protection against evil associates is a 
thorough-going Christian character. Tramps, in 
looking for a lodging-place at night, do not go to 
the premises that are tidy and in good repair, but 
to the house that is rickety and dilapidated; for 
this they naturally suspect to be unoccupied. So 
with bad men. Keep your fences up; keep the 
character in good condition and the light of truth 
burning in the soul, and wicked men will soon learn 
to let you alone. Do n't forget, my young friends, 
that the surest protection against bad company is 
an all-round thorough-going Christian character. 



■^- = »■ 

II. 

-*- -*, 



(sONJFE NTS 



RELATIONS of the Christian minister to young men. — The 
a young man and his school-books. — When these should be 
shelved. — Love for reading to be cultivated. — Importance of 
systematic reading. — Channing on the pleasures of reading. — 
Lord Bacon on the relative value of reading, writing, and con- 
versation. — Why bad books are worse than bad companions. — 
Effects of pernicious literature as seen in prisons and reforma- 
rories. — "Tasters" needed. — Awful effects of an obscene book. — 
Warning against books and papers which extenuate crime. — 
Also, against those which give the revolting details of crime.— 
Trashy reading. — False views of life. — Baneful effects of 
" blood-and-thunder " stories. — Why young men should not read 
skeptical books. — What they should read. — Cautions as to novel- 
reading.— The kind of novels which may be read with profit. — 
Special rules for reading. — The Bible. — What it is, how to read 
it, and the blessed consequences of so doing. 



I^illlilllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllU 




piiiiiiiiiiiiM jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 



II. 



\\)e Youna Man and 91s Books. 



Give attendance to reading. 



Timothy iv, 13. 



AUL was a venerable apostle ; Timothy a 
young and inexperienced minister. They 
v stood to each other in the relation, spiritually 
and ministerially, of father and son. It was 
perfectly right for Paul to advise Timothy as to his 
conduct. Age, authority, and affection gave him 
this right. It was, moreover, exceedingly wise in 
the apostle to counsel this young preacher upon the 
particular point covered by our text ; for then, as 
now, the course of reading pursued by the minister 
could not fail to be a potent factor in developing 
his talents and in determining his success. If a 
preacher neglects his books, his people will soon 
know it, and such a man will find himself erelong 
at a serious disadvantage. Paul fully understood 

43 



44 THE YOUNG MAN. 

this; hence his anxiety that Timothy should "give 
attendance to reading." 

This admonition involved three things : First, 
that Timothy must read ; secondly, that he must 
read upon suitable subjects ; thirdly, that he must 
read to profit. The duty especially enjoined upon 
this young minister was, no doubt, the careful and 
prayerful reading, in both public and private, of 
the oracles of God — the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament. Doubtless, however, the admonition 
had reference, in a broad sense, to profitable read- 
ing of a general kind. 

Paul's advice to Timothy is my advice to you. 
One who has had some little experience in life, one 
who has been called of God to watch for souls, 
takes the liberty to-night to admonish these young 
people, and particularly these young men, to " give 
attendance to reading." I do not speak with such 
authority as Paul could assert, but I have, at least, 
one" claim upon your attention. You are not my 
sons in the Gospel, but you are a part of my min- 
isterial charge, and I know that I am seeking 
your good. The young men before me do not be- 
long to the special class amongst whom Timothy 
was numbered. They are not preachers. This, 
however, does not exempt them from the duty 



HIS BOOKS. 45 

emphasized in our text; for the pleasure and profit 
of reading are, in these days, the blessed preroga- 
tives of people of all classes and of all ages. I 
charge you, therefore, to give attention to this 
matter. 

First, Be readers. 

Some of you are at present, of necessity. I 
speak to young men who have not yet laid aside 
their school-books. Not a few here are attending 
college. How rare are the privileges enjoyed by 
these ! Did you ever think what a small propor- 
tion of the young men of this country, or, indeed, 
of any country, are favored as you are in this re- 
spect? After college, if its opportunities be well 
improved, every thing is possible to you. There is 
no height of ambition you may not scale ; no pro- 
fession you may not fill; no duty of life for which 
you should not be fitted. Act well your part in 
those academic halls, and the world is at your feet. 
Those books you are studying contain somewhere a 
wonderful secret — that much coveted charm, which 
never fails, with the Lord's blessing, to insure suc- 
cess in life. Be diligent and thorough in reading 
their pages, and in mastering their contents, and 
that secret is yours. I do not say that this secret 

may not be found by others ; for I am aware that 

5 



46 THE YOUNG MAN 

many who have never attended college are the 
happy possessors of it, and are illustrating it 
grandly in the most exalted spheres of usefulness. I 
would not for a moment disparage the chances of 
success which those have who are not favored as 
you are. In these shops and offices are boys who 
have not even had the advantages of High School, 
who, no doubt, will distance in life's race many of 
our most promising college boys. Still, all things 
considered, you have the best chance, because yours 
is the birthright heritage. What they, in order to 
exalted success, will have to dig and toil for at a 
later period, is put into your hands at the start. 
I say again, therefore, use well your opportunities, 
and every thing is possible to you. 

For the young man who still hugs to his side 
the school or the college books I have this message : 
If you are thinking of stopping before you are 
through, I beg you, do n't. Cleave to those books 
just as long as you can. Read, mark, learn, and 
inwardly digest them. They are mines in which a 
fortune is embedded. Keep digging till you get it 
out. Your passport to usefulness, to honor, possi- 
bly to greatness, is there. Continue seeking until 
you find it. Get out of those books every thing 
you can. Before putting them upon the shelf, be 



HIS BOOKS. 47 

sure that their contents have been shelved in brain 
and heart for ready use in your future life. How 
many regret, in mature years, that they went to 
school so little, and improved so indifferently the 
advantages they enjoyed there! But who ever 
heard of any one lamenting in after life that he 
was a close student at school, and that he did his 
best to excel in the examinations? 

Your school-days, my young friends, are un- 
questionably your best days. They will shape your 
character, and, in large measure, settle your destiny. 
The opportunities of a college course, so lightly 
esteemed by many, are better, if you only knew it, 
than thousands of gold and silver. I beg you, 
therefore, to improve these opportunities — to make 
the most of them and the best of them ; that so 
you may lay a good foundation against the time to 
come, and may school yourself in your school days 
for an honorable and useful career in life. 

With young men not attending school, the ques- 
tion of what and of how much they shall read, is 
optional, largely. To these I say, with special em- 
phasis, give attention to this matter: 

Cultivate a love for reading. Those who do not 
care for books live in an exceedingly narrow world. 
They are likely to be sadly dwarfed, too, in their 



48 THE YOUNG MAN 

views, and they certainly deprive themselves of a 
large amount of pleasure. Judicious reading not 
only informs the mind; it expands the soul, and 
gives tone and grace to the manners. 

Let me urge, also, the importance of continuous 
and systematic reading. To keep the faculties 
bright and the brain and heart active and vigorous, 
we must have line upon line and precept upon pre- 
cept, here a little and there a little, with no long 
breaks between. The tendency of every thing 
earthly is toward decay and final extinction. A 
building, neglected, soon gets out of repair. A 
business, left to run itself, is not long in run- 
ning into the ground. The flowers which spangle 
our gardens, how quickly they degenerate in form 
and fragrance, if not carefully nurtured ! So with 
character ; and so, also, with our stock of informa- 
tion. The only way to keep what we have is to 
add to it. Fail to replenish regularly the store 
of knowledge you acquired at school, and in middle 
life you will be almost as ignorant as those who 
never attended school. 

Let the young man, by all means, be a reader. 
Otherwise he will be at a disadvantage in life. He 
will soon find himself behind the times. The girls, 
who made better use of their opportunities, will be 



HIS BOOKS. 49 

laughing at his ignorance, and intelligent society 
will close the door in his face. 

We should read, primarily, for profit, although, 
as every lover of books knows, the pleasures of 
reading are not to be despised. 

" It is chiefly through books," says Channing, 
" that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds ; 
and these invaluable means of communication are 
within the reach of all. In the best books great 
men talk to us, give us their best thoughts, and 
pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for 
books ! They are the voices of the distant and the 
dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of 
past ages. Books are the true levelers. They give 
to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the 
spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our 
race. No matter how poor I am ; no matter 
though the prosperous of my own time will not 
enter my obscure dwelling ; if the sacred writers 
will enter and take up their abode under my roof; 
if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of 
Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the worlds 
of imagination and the workings of the human 
heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical 
wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual 
companionship, and I may become a cultivated 



50 THE YOUNG MAN 

man, though excluded from what is called the best 
society in the place where I live." 

With Lord Bacon's emphatic words upon this 
subject many of you are familiar. 

" Reading/' he says, " serves for delight, for or- 
nament, and for ability. The crafty contemn it ; 
the simple admire it ; the wise use it. Reading 
makes a full man, conference a ready man, and 
writing an exact man. He that writes little needs 
a great memory; he that confers little a present 
wit ; and he that reads little, much cunning to seem 
to know that which he does not." 

The second point I wish to impress upon 
these young men is, that they must exercise care 
in reading. 

Be readers, but do not be indiscriminate readers. 
Use discretion in this matter. If you fail in this, 
the injury incurred will far outweigh both the 
pleasure and the profit of the exercise. Books are 
like the companions of whom I spoke last Sabbath. 
The bad ones are very numerous, very obtrusive, 
and very fascinating. You will find them every- 
where without the least trouble, and if a firm resist- 
ance be not made, they will insinuate themselves 
into your good graces. You will find, too, if you 
are so unfortunate as to fall under their influence, 



HIS BOOKS. 51 

that bad books are like bad companions in the 
blight they will bring upon your lives. In fact, 
they are companions, and when they are wicked are 
worse than living associates, for two reasons; first, 
because they stimulate to evil without illustrat- 
ing its awful consequences, and secondly, because 
we can keep company with them in secret, and 
without our equivocal associations being generally 
known. 

The companions we have on the street or in 
the place of amusement, are seen. If they are vile, 
the young man soon hears of it and suffers for it 
in being ostracized from good society ; possibly, too, 
in the loss of a good situation. And this, no doubt, 
serves as a wholesome restraint to keep many from 
forming such associations. But the vile newspaper 
and the bad book accomplish their mischief unseen, 
for they lurk in the young man's pocket, and at 
night are hidden frequently under his pillow, to be, 
too often, an inspiration to dreams little less evil, 
or less harmful, than the thoughts they have aroused 
during the day. Not only, therefore, does per- 
nicious literature produce effects similar to those 
arising from bad company; it produces worse 
effects, and from the fact that it works its havoc 
unseen, and unsuspected, often, until irreparable 



52 THE YOUNG MAN. 

damage has been done, it is far more to be dreaded 
and condemned. 

To assure yourselves of the awful curse which 
follows in the wake of bad reading, go to our Re- 
formatories and question the boys there as to what 
led them so early into the ways of sin. Go, also, to 
our Penitentiaries and interrogate, upon the same 
point, the young men who constitute so large a part 
of our regular prison population. In the former 
case you will find that vile books were the chief 
factor in the ruin and disgrace produced — a more 
potent factor, indeed, than all other causes com- 
bined. In the latter, it will be drink, chiefly; but 
how many you will find, who, if the truth could be 
ascertained, had their steps turned toward the 
saloon by pernicious literature, and who received 
their earliest schooling in crime from this source. 

The books we read are the food upon which our 
minds subsist. How often, though, is that which 
we take in, not food, but poison ! The ancient 
kings were so afraid that what they ate or drank 
might be drugged, that they kept a confidential 
servant whose business it was to taste every thing. 
How important that parents taste the books their 
boys and girls are reading! How important that 
tasters be stationed in our public libraries! What 



HIS BOOKS. 53 

need there is for an official taster in every com- 
munity, and if we had such an official, how many 
of the most popular publications of the day, instead 
of longer kindling fires of passion in human souls, 
would be piled in heaps to make bonfires of! 

Talk about not needing prohibition — we need 
many forms of it; chiefly, however, these two — 
prohibition of the liquor traffic, and prohibition of 
the sale and manufacture of every kind of bad and 
questionable literature. We are horrified at the 
heartlessness of a certain Emperor who is said to 
have abandoned himself to gayety while Rome was 
burning. But what shall be thought of those pub- 
lishers of newspapers and books in this nineteenth 
century, who sit in their offices on week days and 
some of them in their Church pews on the Sabbath, 
and chuckle over the money raked in from the 
slaughter of innocent boys — the profits realized 
from literature which has kindled within the youth 
of our land the passions of brute beasts, and set 
their souls on fire with the very flames of hell ! 

To give our remarks a more practical turn, let 
us descend now to particulars, considering first the 
kind of books these young men should avoid. 

I warn you first against the obscene book — the 
book which presents impure thoughts, or displays 



54 THE YOUNG MAN 

pictures inimical to modesty. Do not knowingly 
glance over the pages of such a book. An eminent 
painter, made it a rule, he tells us, to not even look 
at a bad picture, lest, as he expressed it, "his own 
pencil should take a taint therefrom/' A capital 
rule for all to observe with reference to bad books. 
Should an alleged friend ever show you such a 
book, brand him, from that moment, as your worst 
enemy. He is a moral assassin. He may not be 
aware of it, but the fact is that the man who thrusts 
an obscene book under your eyes, thrusts a dagger 
at your character, and inflicts a wound upon your 
soul, which probably will never be healed. An 
eminent minister in England, now dead, related 
once, how, twenty-five years before, a school friend 
had put a vile book into his hands, on the 
street corner, and had given him fifteen minutes in 
which to look over it. He did look over it, and 
the effects of those fifteen minutes of vileness were 
never eradicated, as he himself bore testimony. " I 
tell you in all sincerity," he says, "that there is 
nothing I would not willingly give to have the veil 
of oblivion cast over the scenes and sentiments of 
that corrupt volume ; but I can not get rid of them ; 
they haunt me still like foul specters." 

From this example and the thousands of similar 



HIS BOOKS. 55 

ones which could be cited, let the young men be- 
fore nie, take warning. They should have nothing 
to do with such books — not even, if they can avoid 
it, to so much as glance cursorily through their 
baneful pages. 

Beware, also, of books and papers which ex- 
tenuate crime; which make light of sin; which put 
a low estimate upon morality; which associate 
wickedness with strength, and make the good 
appear weak and contemptible ; which strip vice of 
its hideousness, and make it a thing to be loved, 
rather than loathed — books and papers which scoff 
at honesty, which make rogues get rich, and the 
upright to always go down in life's struggle ; which 
convert thieves into heroes ; which make the liber- 
tine a fellow of noble impulses, and the fallen 
woman superior in general goodness to the lady 
who prides herself upon her virtue — beware of such 
books as these. They give you false views of life ; 
they inculcate bad principles; they present base 
models for your study; they point in the wrong 
direction — the influence of such books is evil, only 
evil, and that continually. 

I must caution you, too, not only against pub- 
lications which extenuate crime, but against those 
which give the revolting details of crime. The 



56 THE YOUNG MAN 

alleged object in such cases is to reprobate what is 
described ; but the real purpose is to make money by 
pandering to depraved appetites; and the effect of 
such reading is little less pernicious than in the case 
of publications which distinctly excuse and extol the 
evils they depict. The less we know of crime and 
of criminals the better chance we shall have of 
keeping ourselves free from their wicked practices. 
Those who make themselves familiar with crime, 
are likely to not abhor it as they should. More- 
over, they have the disadvantage, when the tempta- 
tion comes, of knowing how the thing is done. 

I warn you, furthermore, against trashy reading, 
for this, though it may not inflame the passions, 
does waste the time. It also weakens the mind, 
and unfits, by that much, for the practical affairs 
of life. 

This world is not a garden of roses ; and any 
book you read which represents that it is, misleads 
and injures you. Life is a stern reality — not the 
sentimental affair which silly love-stories make it 
out to be. To be sure, there are things to stir our 
emotions, and we shall be sure to meet women who 
will kindle the fires of manly affection in our souls. 
Nevertheless, the warp and woof of our earthly ex- 
istence consist of materials more tangible than the 



HIS BOOKS. 57 

sigh of the languishing lover, and illustrate events, 
too, far more practical than the pleasant pastime of 
courting. 

Life is a battle. We must conquer in it or be 
conquered. We win, if at all, by hard blows and 
strenuous endurance. The books, therefore, which 
fascinate the youthful mind by reducing existence 
to a mere sentiment, and by converting this mighty 
battle-field into a paradise of sweetness and light, 
are a snare and a delusion. They may afford you 
entertainment ; but far from helping you in your 
struggles, far from nerving that arm to strength or 
that heart to valor, they will enfeeble you, as cer- 
tainly as that mighty army of Hannibal w T as enfee- 
bled and emaciated when it turned aside from the 
rigors of campaign life to the luxuries and pleasures 
of the gay city of Capua. 

Let me warn you, also, against sensational read- 
ing, the blood-and-thunder stories, and those highly 
seasoned and scandalous articles which, in this day, 
occupy so large a space in the average newspaper. 
Many enjoy such reading as this. They like to 
have their feelings wrought upon. Such as these 
judge of the merits of literature as the Indians 
used to judge of rifles, viz., by the force with 
which they kicked back, thinking those the best 



58 THE YOUNG MAN. 

which exploded with a shock that felled the owner 
to the ground. Ah, how many of these heavily 
loaded and heavily leaded newspaper articles have 
brought the unsuspecting reader to the ground, by 
undermining his repugnance to sin and by knock- 
ing from beneath him the props of moral principle ! 

I warn you, furthermore, against skeptical 
books — books which attack the Bible and rail at 
Christian faith. It may be well enough for older 
persons to read such books. Often, in fact, their 
perusal may lead a matured mind into the light 
of salvation, as was the effect upon a man who 
read Tom Paine's " Age of Reason." Having pre- 
viously read the Bible to some extent, this man 
found in Paine's writings so many gross misrepre- 
sentations of its statements, that he was driven to 
examine that book more thoroughly, the result 
being that the more he read it, the more firmly he 
believed it, and that he was led, finally, through 
his recoil from infidelity, to embrace the truth as it 
is in Jesus. This was the effect of a skeptical book 
upon one man ; and doubtless such reading has 
resulted similarly in many other cases. 

The young, however, should avoid such books ; 
for these are easily impressed, and, though they 
would scarcelv admit it, easily deceived. They 



HIS BOOKS. 59 

have neither, as yet, the keenness of intellect to 
detect false reasoning, nor the strength of character 
to withstand the ridicule in which such writers 
indulge. They are not armed as yet for conflict 
with such foes as these. We have no objection to 
the trained and equipped veteran challenging these 
Philistines to combat ; but let the young recruit 
keep w T ithin the lines of safety until his tactics are 
perfect and his defenses complete. Time enough 
to read objections to the Christian faith when you 
have a thorough understanding of it ; time enough 
to study attacks upon the Bible, when you shall 
have carefully read and prayerfully studied that 
blessed book itself. 

This brings us to our next point. 

Having alluded to some books which you should 
not read, I must indicate, in closing, the class of 
publications which you may read, and the perusal 
of which is sure to be beneficial to you. 

Eead every thing you can upon the arts and 
sciences; for the knowledge you gain in these de- 
partments will be of practical value to you in the 
affairs of daily life. Eead books of travel; for 
these will transport you into other worlds, and 
make you familiar with persons and places you may 
never see with the natural eye. To visit distant 



60 THE YOUNG MAN 

lands is an experience which is wonderfully pleas- 
ing, and one which has a marvelous influence in 
quickening the intellect and in broadening the 
nature. But to travel thus in reality is possible to 
only a few. All, however, may enjoy its advan- 
tages through the medium of books. These books 
of travel are the ships which carry us, without sea- 
sickness, across the world's oceans; they are the silent 
and long-stepping camels which transport us over 
arid deserts ; the railway trains which enable us to* 
span continents; the lamps which reveal to us the 
treasures hidden in caves or buried in the depths of 
the earth ; the staves by means of which we climb 
to Alpine summits; the guides which lead us to 
the strange places, and point out the world's won- 
ders ; the cameras which bring into focus with our 
vision, and photograph for our entertainment, ob- 
jects of interest and persons of prominence in all 
parts of the earth. Such are books of travel. 
Every one should read such books as these, and all 
who read them are sure to be pleased and benefited. 
I advise you, also, to read history. Carlyle ad- 
vises young men to begin with this. "The class 
of books specifically called history can be safely 
recommended/' he says, " as the basis of all study 
of books."" Again he says : " Past history, and 



HIS BOOKS. 61 

especially the past history of one's native country — ■ 
every body may be advised to begin with that." 
" Let him/' he adds, " study that faithfully, and he 
will have found a broad, beaten highway, from 
which all the country about will be more or less 
visible." 

As to works of the imagination, we can not, 
of course, condemn these indiscriminately. But at 
this point great care must be exercised. If you 
read novels, be sure to read the best, the highest, 
the purest. Choose, above all others, the historical 
romance. The average novel of the period I am 
certain you ought not to read. Select, in prefer- 
ence, the works of those standard authors whose 
names are synonyms of literary wholesomeness. 

Understand me, I do not advise, nor can I 
countenance, indiscriminate novel-reading. On the 
other hand, however, to advise you to not read any 
works of fiction would be useless and foolish, not 
to say cruel. What we do advise is that you exer- 
cise great care and show good taste along this line. 

Some novels are doing a gracious work in this 

world. Men are blessed and saved by reading 

them. This is pre-eminently true of novels written 

for a distinctively religious object, and it is true 

in a measurable degree of those written to further 

6 



62 THE YOUNG MAN 

reformatory objects, or to teach good moral behav- 
ior. Who does not know of the mission of mercy 
accomplished by " Uncle Tom's Cabin/' a book 
which is universally conceded to have done more 
toward the abolition of slavery than almost all 
other human agencies combined? We must not 
forget, either, that Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " 
is a novel ; and what book, the Bible alone ex- 
cepted, has guided so many souls into the way of 
life? Would that I could prevail upon every 
young person to read that book ! 

We can not particularize much further. I say 
this simply : Read whatever is good. Thackeray's 
advice is, " Try to keep company with your bet- 
ters ; in books and in life that is the best society." 

I give you another rule. Read no book and 
look into no paper which you would be ashamed 
to have your mother or your sister see. 

Another : Read no book which inflames passion. 

Still another : Read only such books as give a 
reasonable promise of contributing to one of these 
two ends: of affording useful knowledge, without 
making you wise in wickedness, or of ministering 
innocent pleasure without exposing you to temp- 
tation. 

Sermons and lectures are good things to read. 



HIS BOOKS. 63 

So are moral essays, and all books relating either 
to character-building or to the cultivation of gen- 
teel manners. Benjamin Franklin tells us, in one 
of his letters, that, when a boy, a little book fell 
into his hands, entitled, " Essays to Do Good," 
by Cotton Mather. It was tattered and torn, and 
several leaves were missing. " But the remainder/' 
he says, " gave me such a turn of thinking as to 
have an influence on my conduct all through life." 

Finally, and chiefly, I commend my young 
friends to the Bible. 

The greatest book, this, and the best. Other 
books are planets ; this is the sun. John Newton 
says, " There are silver books, and a very few 
golden books ; but I have one book worth them 
all, called the Bible." The book of all books, 
this — in one sense, the only book; certainly the 
only book that can afford comfort in prospect 
of death. 

Just before his death, Sir Walter Scott, sitting 
in the library, requested his son-in-law, Lockhart, 
to read to him. " From what book shall I read ?" 
inquired Lockhart. " Why ask ?" said Sir Walter. 
" There is but one." His son-in-law then took 
down the Bible, and read that blessed fourteenth 
of John, which tells of the many mansions, Sir 



64 THE YOUNG MAN 

Walter observing pathetically at the close : " This 
is a great comfort. I have followed you distinctly, 
and I feel as if I was to be myself again." 

O, blessed book ! It does assure us that we 
shall be ourselves again ; for while the body is 
sinking, and when human comforters all fail, it 
brings us that blessed message from the Savior's 
own lips : " He that believeth on me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die." 

Read the Bible, my young friends. A fountain, 
this, which never runs dry, and the waters of which 
never lose their freshness; a garden, whose flowers 
never fade, and whose fruits never decay ; a mine 
of wealth, in which you may dig for a lifetime 
without either diminishing the supply or wearying 
of the search for its rare gems of truth. 

A little girl, hearing of a very aged woman, 
who, for many years, had "done nothing but read 
the Bible," exclaimed " How tired she must be ! 
Do ask her if she is not very tired of it." But the 
old woman, informed of the child's inquiry, re- 
plied, " Tell her I love it more and more." Just 
the answer which every sincere Bible-reader in the 
world would give, could you interrogate them upon 
this point. 



HIS BOOKS. 65 

I beg you again, my young friends, to read this 
book. You have heard there are difficulties in it. 
Read it, and these difficulties will become so 
trifling, in comparison with its transparent glories, 
that you will no more notice them than, in the full 
glory of noonday, you notice the spots upon the 
sun. You have heard, perhaps, that there are in- 
consistencies in the Bible. Read it, with such 
helps as the best commentators afford, and where 
yon had thought to see chaos, you will find order ; 
where you had expected to hear discord, strains of 
divinest harmony will ravish your senses ! 

Read this blessed book. You will find peace, 
pardon, Christ, heaven in it ! In sorrow, go to it 
for comfort ; in perplexity, for guidance ; in weak- 
ness, for strength ; in discouragement, for new 
hope ; in times of conflict, for armor and weapons. 
Make it the man of your counsel, the staff of 
your life ! 

Let every young man have a copy of this blessed 
book in a conspicuous place in his room. Let it 
be a witness to your secret doings, reminding you, 
in this regard, of the all-seeing eye of its omnis- 
cient Author. Let that Bible of yours be well 
thumbed. Find the best passages in it, and mark 
them. There are portions which tell of the evil 



66 THE YOUNG MAN 

men did. Skip these, and look for the good. If 
you should die shortly, or without warning, let the 
marks in your Bible be such as to proclaim to all 
the purity and nobility of your character. 

O, young men, do n't look for the spots on the 
face of this divine luminary ; look for the brightness 
beaming from its pages. Seek not, with carrion 
instincts, for the vileness and death in this wide- 
stretching landscape of human history ; look rather 
for the verdant meadows which speak of rest; for 
the towering hills which inspire strength ; for the 
rippling brooks which sparkle with light, and make 
sweet music in their flowing ; for the flowers, whose 
bright faces image to us the divine purity, and 
whose rich odors attest to our senses the sweetness 
of the divine love. Look for these things in the 
Bible. Look for such things, and you shall find 
them, at once to the advantage of your life and to 
the joy and satisfaction of your souls. 

My last admonition is, Let us never give up the 
Bible. Let us cling to it under all circumstances. 
I have read of a shipwrecked boy, who was taken 
from the water unconscious, but whom vigorous 
remedies brought back to life. His arms, when he 
was taken up, were pressed tightly to his breast, 
and within them, close to that noble heart, was a 



HIS BOOKS. 67 

small book — a Bible, which, he said afterwards, 
had been given him by his mother, and from which 
he had promised her never to part ! 

What an example this for these young men ! 
Whatever else you let go, God help you to 
cling to that mother's Bible ! Read that blessed 
book ; take it for your guide in life ; keep it about 
you ; get it into your heart. Do this, and never, 
in that case, shall you make shipwreck of either 
moral principle or Christian faith; for in every 
storm you shall have Christ in the vessel, who, 
rising up in the majesty of his divine nature, shall 
rebuke the tempestuous elements, and by those 
magic, all-potent words, " Peace, be still !" shall 
keep your soul in perfect security and in perfect 
repose, rage the hurricane never so fiercely, roll the 
billows never so high ! 



TJS 






III. 



$Be: Boang {Jlam and Kis ©angers. 



* 



*- 



Contents, 



ijiNE father's darling. — A mother's love, and the thrilling co- 
y incidence to which it led. — Parental anxiety. — Absalom's 
awful fate. — Analogy between Absalom and the young men of 
to-day — Why young men are in danger. — Lack of experience. — 
Life a picture gallery. — Perils of youthful vigor. — Special 
snares for the young. — Life an enchanted hill. — Dangers arising 
from false principles. — Consequences of underrating honesty — 
Two conspicuous examples. — Little sins and whatthey lead to. — 
The circle which bounds youthful security. — That pernicious 
wild-oats theory. — Seed time and harvest. — Dangerous places. — 
The House of Death, and why it should be shunned. — The sa- 
loon and its red light. — Gambling dens, and the steps which 
lead thereto. — Places of amusement. — Test questions for the 
theater. — A pleasant experience at sea. — The only safe pilot. — ■ 
The disease and the remedy. — What to be most afraid of. 



iyjiiiiiillllliiiiiiiiiiiiii'iiiiiiiiiiiiiiili 

... .... . , ■■ ,..;, ,:,, 



Ill 



T \)e Youna Man and 91s Dana 



ers. 



Is the young man Absalom safe ? "—2 Samuel xviii, 32. 

,HE tender inquiry of David concerning a way- 
ward son. Absalom was his father's darling. 
£) So fair was he of countenance ; so striking a 
picture of youthful beauty did he present, with 
his long, glossy ringlets drooping gracefully to his 
shoulders; so winsome and attractive were his man- 
ners, that the king's heart was completely captivated. 
There was nothing he would not have done for this 
handsome boy — nothing he was not willing to suffer 
for his sake — no infamy his fatherly affection was 
not ready to condone. 

O, this love of parents for their children — 
what is there like it in all the world — what so ten- 
der, so persistent, so forbearing and forgiving? 
Last week we had, within our own congregation, an 



72 THE YOUNG MAN. 

illustration of a mother's love, for one, too, who 
was her child only by adoption. The child had 
grown to manhood, and had been for years in his 
own home," with his own children about him. Still 
he was her boy, and she never knelt to pray that 
she did not speak his name. The hazardous nature 
of his employment increased that mother's solic- 
itude. Not only in waking hours, but in her dreams 
she prayed for him. On Wednesday night, last, a 
fatal accident befell this man. Mangled by the cars, 
he lay in agony from nine o'clock until a little past 
twelve, and then died. All unconscious of his 
special danger, excepting as the angels might have 
whispered it to her, his mother was in bed and 
asleep at the time. But what a coincidence, what 
an illustration of the tenderness and sleeplessness of 
her motherly love, that she should have awakened 
suddenly about midnight, just before he died, and 
found herself, with arms upraised, praying fer- 
vently, " Lord, save my boy ! " 

Our text presents David to us in a similar state 
of anxiety. Absalom has been in battle. Wretched 
ingrate that he is, he has returned his father's love 
by leading a rebellion against him. Reluctantly, at 
last, the king sent out an army to engage the insur- 
gents in deadly strife. There were three divisions, 



HIS DANGERS. 73 

and to each commander David, % as he reviewed the 
troops, gave a special charge, in hearing of all the 
soldiers, to " deal gently with the young man." In 
breathless suspense he waits now, at the gate of 
Mahanaim, for tidings from the battle-field. Upon 
the issue of that conflict hangs the fate of his king- 
dom. But the sorrowful monarch is not thinking 
of that. He is thinking of his boy — wondering 
how it goes with his wayward darling — praying for 
him, doubtless. And when, at length, the two mes- 
sengers arrive, what is the anxious king's first 
question? Ah, this was it — the question of our 
text — " Is he safe ? — is he safe ? " The battle has 
been won, the rebels have been routed, the kingdom 
is re-established ; but " Is the young man Absalom 
safe?" 

Could we to-night enter unseen, one after 
another, the households in this community, how 
many fathers and mothers should we find anxiously 
propounding the same inquiry ! The voice does 
not speak, but that look of care tells the story 
plainly enough. Mark, too, those tearful eyes. No 
earthly friend is near. They are alone with God. 
They are asking Him: "Is he safe? That boy of 
mine — where is he — is he safe ? Is the young man 
safe?" Possibly the parents of some of the young 



74 THE YOUNG MAN 

men here are passing through such an agony of 
solicitude. They may dwell in Springfield, or they 
may reside elsewhere. It may be a father; it may 
be a mother; but one or the other, if not both, are 
thinking to-night of their boy ; and the query 
which agitates their minds is the question of our 
text, " Is the young man safe ? " 

I can not help feelmg that my own parents are 
thinking to-night of their absent boy. Separated by 
an ocean, aged and careworn, with other children 
nearer and quite as dear, they still will not forget 
me. They have "no reason to suppose that it is, or 
will be, other than well with me. Still they '11 
have a care for my welfare. They have already 
prayed for me before retiring, and very likely my 
dear old mother will dream of me and wake up to 
say, "God bless my boy." May God bless them! 
May God bless all the praying fathers and 
mothers ! 

O, young men — when you 're out at night and 
your mother is not apprised of your whereabouts — 
how she does think of you and pray for you ; and 
when you return, later than usual — so late you 're- 
ashamed to step heavily, or to make any noise lest 
your tardiness should be known, don't delude your- 
self, at such times, with the idea that that anxious 



HIS DANGERS. 75 

one is sleeping. She is n't ; she is praying. She 
has heard the clock strike every time. She has 
caught the echo of every passing footstep on the 
street. Noiselessly as you did it, her quick moth- 
erly senses detected your first touch upon the door- 
knob, and followed you in every movement till you 
were in bed. O, these mother's ears, how quick 
they are ! These motherly eyes, how far they see, 
and those hearts of theirs, how much they feel, 
how tenderly they love — how often they bleed! 
and how many of them break, at last, rent in 
twain by this anxious question, " Is the young man 
safe?" 

Absalom was not safe at this time. The father's 
charge to deal gently with the young man did not 
avail. God took the matter in hand. Riding under 
an oak, his long hair caught in the branches, and 
he hung thereby between heaven and earth. Thus, 
that which had been his glory became the means of 
his punishment. Joab found him. David's voice 
said " Spare," but Divine justice commanded him 
to strike, and he sent three arrows through the 
young man's heart. Afterwards, to make his death 
certain, and his ignominy complete, Joab's servants 
smote Absalom, and now while his old father in- 
quires anxiously, "Is he safe?" his mangled body 



76 THE YOUNG MAN. 

is in a deep pit in the adjacent forest ; with a heap 
of stones piled upon it. 

He had magnificent opportunities, but he wasted 
them — a grand chance for greatness and honor, but 
he abused it. Having lived an outrageously wicked 
life, he has come at last to a disgraceful end. He 
deserved his fate, if man ever did. We are not 
surprised that David bewailed him, saying as he 
went to the chamber above the gate, "O, my son 
Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I 
had died for thee, O, Absalom, my son, my son." 
We are not surprised to hear such' a lament as this 
from David. It is just like a parent, whether father 
or mother, to act in this way when a loved offspring 
is overtaken by disaster, even though the child was 
bad and the doom richly deserved. But while 
David weeps, the people of Judah rejoice, and the 
verdict of posterity ever since has been, " Served 
him right." He met a just punishment. He 
sowed to the wind and he reaped the whirlwind. 
His life had been a curse, and, inevitably, he was 
not desired in his death. 

No ; Absalom was not safe ; nor are the young 
men of the present day safe. Their position is 
different from his — most of them are far better 
than he ; and yet there are analogies in the two 



HIS DANGERS. 77 

cases. Was he fighting a battle? So are you. 
Was he surrounded by entanglements, and moving 
in the midst of flying arrows? So are you. Was 
he entrapped in a manner entirely unexpected — 
the unconscious instrument of his overthrow being 
one of the features of that personal beauty upon 
which his own heart had been set, and which had 
so captivated other hearts ? So is it in your case ; 
the things in which you glory being your great- 
est snares, the elements of your youthful strength 
the sources of your greatest peril. 

This last thought suggests my first general prop- 
osition. 

In speaking of the young man and his dangers, 
I observe, first, that the young man is exposed to 
peculiar danger from the fact that he is young. 

Because he is young he lacks experience. He 
thinks himself wonderfully wise, but in reality he 
is very ignorant. The ways of the world are 
largely, as yet, a sealed book to him. By and by 
he will be wiser, and, most likely, sadder. The 
old saying is that you can ? t put old heads on 
young shoulders. Truly you can not, and, all 
things considered, this is not desirable. But if 
these young men had older heads on their shoul- 
ders, and a longer experience behind them, they 



78 THE YOUNG MAN 

certainly would be better equipped than they are 
for the conflict of life. 

Because you are young, you are inexperienced. 
Because you are inexperienced, you are at a serious 
disadvantage in coping with your enemies ; for you 
are not familiar with their wiles, and are more 
likely, therefore, to be duped and ruined by them. 
Thus your dangers are largely augmented by the 
fact that you do not see them clearly, and have 
not so full an appreciation as you should of their 
enormity and of the dire consequences to which 
they lead. 

Then, being young, you are easily impressed 
and influenced. Every thing is new; every thing 
attracts; every thing you see or hear makes its 
mark upon you. Habitues of the picture-gallery 
can traverse its rooms and corridors, if they choose, 
as indifferent to the scenes and faces about them as 
though they were walking with closed eyes ; but 
the casual visitor sees every thing, and every pic- 
ture leaves its impress. The florist, from his long 
familiarity with bright flowers and rich odors, can 
walk through his conservatory with scarcely any 
consciousness of the beauties about him, or of the 
delicate fragrance which perfumes the atmosphere; 
but the novice is so sensitive to such surroundings, 



HIS DANGERS. 79 

so captivated by those rainbow-tinted blossoms, 
and so charmed by the odors they exhale, that he 
feels almost as if he were walking in an earthly 
paradise. 

This world is a picture-gallery, and it may also 
be likened to a conservatory. It is, of course, far 
from being either so safe or so pleasant a place as 
these usually are ; but it is like them in this, viz., 
that there are many things to be seen, many things 
to challenge the admiration, whether worthily or 
not, and many enjoyments to tempt us. The young 
are having their first experiences amid these scenes, 
and from the fact that they are peculiarly impress- 
ible, and are walking in places where they are lia- 
ble to see evil things as well as good, and in 
greater number and more glaring colors than good 
things, they are exposed to peculiar dangers. 

Then, too, youth means vigor, passion, an ex- 
cess of animal spirits. These things are the glory 
of youth ; but they #re, also, as the flowing locks 
of Absalom proved to be, a source of great peril to 
their possessors. They are like that high-spirited, 
proud-stepping horse — useful and beautiful when 
under restraint, but, when not controlled, terrible 
and most dangerous. It is aptly said of fire, that 
it is a good servant, but a bad master. Young 



80 THE YOUNG MAN 

man, there are fires in your nature. We know it 
by the glow upon your cheek, by the sparkle in 
your eye, and by the warm, vigorous life which 
courses through all your frame. It is this inner 
burning which makes youth so beautiful and so 
strong. But I charge you to-night, my young 
friends, to keep a close watch upon this fire, and 
to throw judicious restraints about it ; for while it 
is a good servant, you '11 find it to be a fearful 
master, should it ever gain the ascendency over you. 

The young man is also in peculiar danger from 
the fact that he is exposed to peculiar snares. 
There are enemies constantly lying in wait for him. 
They know his tastes, and they cater to them. 
They have learned his weaknesses, and upon these 
they turn their batteries of assault. They give him 
no rest. By night and by day they assail him. 
Often, too, the fiend of iniquity is to his gaze as an 
angel of light. The flower is beautiful ; he does 
not see the poisonous asp under its leaf. The cup 
is sweet when he first tastes it, and so he drains its 
contents, to find at the bottom, all too often, worm- 
wood and death. 

Life, to the young man, is like the enchanted 
hill of which we read in Oriental story-books. At 
the top is concealed an invaluable treasure. This 



HIS DANGERS. 81 

is the object of the young man's search, its acquire- 
ment the goal of his ambition. But the groves on 
the hill-side are full of temptations and allurements. 
The voice of the siren calls to him. Birds of pleas- 
ure carol their sweetest notes. Charmers of all 
kinds seek to win him by their wiles. The condi- 
tion upon which that prize may be gained is, that 
the young man climb to the top without looking 
back ; the consequence of looking back, according 
to the story-books, that the youth shall be con- 
verted into a stone. O, how few scale the summit ! 
how few gain the treasure ! how many, how very 
many, look back and are lost ! 

Thus, not only are young men exposed to pe- 
culiar dangers by reason of their peculiarly sensi- 
tive and vigorous natures, but their environments 
are against them, their path being strewn with pe- 
culiarly seductive snares, and their souls surrounded 
by enemies who are plotting for their ruin, whose 
evil purposes, too, are all the more likely to be 
successful from the fact that they are concealed, 
usually, under the guise of kindness and friendship. 

The young man is also in danger, we observe 
in the second place, from false principles. 

He is in danger of thinking that youth and 
earlv manhood are of little account in the sum of 



82 THE YOUNG MAN 

his existence, and, consequently, is in imminent 
peril of neglecting the rare opportunities they 
afford; whereas the truth is that these periods are 
to his future life what the foundation is to the 
building and the seed-time to the gathering season. 
The days of youth are generally thoughtless days. 
Better, though, that we be thoughtless at any pe- 
riod than at that — better waste any period than 
that ! To neglect the opportunities of youth is to 
advance to the responsibilities of middle life with- 
out a proper preparation therefor. The young man, 
in such a case, enters the race without training — 
rushes into the tournament, to engage in deadly 
conflict with skilled and powerful warriors, without 
armor, without weapons, without skill, without 
strength ! Will it be surprising if he come to 
grief? "What else can he expect? 

O, young men, let me plead with you a mo- 
ment. Whatever you do, do n't waste these halcyon 
days of your early manhood. They are the gold- 
dust of being. Gather them up for your future en- 
richment. They are the school-term of life. Use 
them, I beg you, in learning good lessons, in acquir- 
ing useful discipline, and in laying a strong founda- 
tion in every way against the time to come. 

I fear, too, that our young men are in danger 



HIS DANGERS. 83 

of not attaching sufficient importance to that com- 
monplace but sterling virtue of honesty; in danger 
of acting as if the chief end of life were to acquire 
wealth ; in danger of imagining that success, rather 
than character, is the test of merit in the world ; 
in danger of thinking that, all things considered, 
that father was very sensible who said to his boy, 
" Get money, my son ; honestly, if you can, but get 
money." I am very much afraid that such princi- 
ples as these, so largely practiced by older people, 
are menacing the integrity and undermining the 
happiness of the youth of our age. Here again, 
therefore, I lift before these young men the red 
light of warning. 

Principles like these are the recruiting officers 
for our penitentiaries. Boss Tweed put money be- 
fore honesty, and while his bones rot, his memory is 
a stench all over our land. Ferdinand Ward pur- 
sued the same path ; and where is he ? From lux- 
ury he has fallen into ignominy; the rich attire 
gives place to the prison-garb ; from Wall Street he 
goes to Sing Sing ! And these are but two examples 
out of thousands. What if bad principles do pros- 
per for a time? As surely as there is a God in 
heaven, the day of reckoning will come at last, how- 
ever long delayed. 



84 THE YOUNG MAN 

Ah, better be honest than rich, after all ! Better 
be right than be a millionaire. Happily, however, 
it is possible to be both. I deny that it is the rule 
for the bad to thrive and the good to suffer — for 
the wicked to get rich, and the righteous to walk 
usually on the ragged edge of want. I affirm, in- 
deed, without fear of contradiction, that the rule is 
the very opposite from this, and I want these young 
men to understand it, to believe it, to remember it, 
and to govern their conduct accordingly. Remem- 
ber, not only that it is your duty to be honest, but 
that, in the substantial and enduring profit accruing 
from such conduct, it will pay you to be honest. 
Remember Paul's words — write them on your 
school-books, on your ledgers, on the work-bench, 
on your chamber-walls, and in your hearts — " God- 
liness is profitable to all things, having promise of 
the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 

Let me warn you, furthermore, of the danger 
to which you are liable from the supposition, so 
common with young men, that occasional indul- 
gences in sin will not harm you, and that what are 
known as the trivial vices can be cherished with 
impunity. 

Remember, my young friends, that vice is vice, 
however simple and harmless it may appear, and 



HIS DANGERS. 85 

that sin is sin, whether indulged constantly or at 
intervals. Remember, too, that the smallest sin 
makes you a sinner, and thus, at once, excludes you 
from the divine favor and withdraws from you the 
divine protection. Every sinner, be he great or 
small, is without God and without hope in the 
world. Be assured, too, that every vice is a clog 
upon your progress, and that every sin you commit 
weakens your moral powers, and detracts, by so 
much, from the chances of your final salvation. 

Ah, these little sins, which we fear so little and 
cherish so fondly — they are the vipers, which, when 
full-grown, thrust their poisoned fangs into our 
souls ; the germs of decay in the trunk of the oak, 
which extend unseen, slowly yet surely, until some 
night, when the wind is unusually boisterous, that 
hollow tree cracks, and with a mighty thud falls to 
the earth. The young man who is all right morally, 
excepting in one particular, whatever that may be, 
is like a stately ship which is all right, excepting 
that she has a leak in her hull ; like a besieged city, 
which is admirably fortified in every way, excepting 
that one of her gates is open ; like Achilles of old, 
who is invulnerable at every point except one, that 
one, unfortunately, being a constant source of peril 
and a continual menace to his peace, as, finally, it 



86 THE YOUNG MAN 

will also be, in all probability, the cause of his 
destruction. 

For these reasons I put you on guard to- 
night. Beware of trivial vices, and of what are 
called little sins. Cast them away from you. Be 
fully armed and fully fortified. Keep ever within 
the circle of right. Do n't put even your little 
finger outside that circle. Remember the story of 
the ancient magician, who, on one occasion, drew 
a circle around some youths, and charged them, in 
spite of all temptations, to keep within it as they 
valued their lives ; then, by his incantations, bring- 
ing a company of dancing uymphs near to them, 
who used such arts, it is said, that one of the 
youths stretched his finger beyond the circle to re- 
ceive a ring that was offered him, the result being 
that he was caught and dragged away. 

Let the young men before me learn a lesson 

from this fable. God help them to keep ever within 

the safe circle of virtue; to fight always with all 

their armor on ; to live continually under the eye 

of God and in presence of His great judgment 

throne. As the poet says : 

Dare to do right ! dare to be true ! 
Keep the great judgment-seat always in view ; 
Look at your work as you'll look at it then, 
Scanned by Jehovah and angels and men. 



HIS DANGERS. 87 

I must warn you, furthermore, against the per- 
nicious idea that no harm will come from the sow- 
ing of a few wild oats. By the eternal laws of 
God I warn you — those immutable arrangements 
by means of which, in morals, as in nature, each 
seed brings forth infallibly according to its kind. 
By the declaration of the apostle I warn you. 
" Be not deceived," he says, " God is not mocked ; 
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap." I warn, you, too, by the sad examples of 
this pernicious doctrine afforded in the experience 
of your fellow-men. 

Do you see that man prematurely old and de- 
crepit, a physical wreck in middle life? Would 
you know the cause of his early decay? Would 
you know why many men break down mentally 
with softening of the brain ? 

Do you see that wretched drunkard reeling 
along the sidewalks? Follow him to his home, so- 
called, and observe the squalor, the degradation, the 
agony that is there ! Would you know the reason 
for all this? Do you see that man with a family, 
trying vainly to get on in life — without friends, 
without credit, without prospects, all because he is 
without character ? Would you learn the cause of 
this hopeless wreck? 



88 THE YOUNG MAN 

Ah, in each of these cases, to find the secret of 
the misfortunes and miseries you see, you must go 
back into youth and early manhood. This is har- 
vest time with these people, and they are reaping 
as they sowed. They are finding out now how 
irrevocable are the laws of God — how awfully true 
those words of the apostle that we must reap as we 
sow. That man who is prematurely old, physi- 
cally, impaired his health by sins committed and 
follies indulged many years ago. So, usually, 
though not invariably, with those whose brain 
softens. So with the others. That drunkard pre- 
pared the way for his present thralldom by occasional 
drinking when he was a young man. That poor un- 
fortunate who is without friends and credit, forfeited 
his right to these helps in life by the way in which 
he abused them at the start. In a word, all these 
creatures are victims of that baneful wild oats the- 
ory — the foolish and fatal notion that there is no 
harm in a young man being a little gay and wicked 
for a time. 

With all the emphasis I can command, with all 
the force, all the tenderness, all the solemnity I can 
possibly summon to my aid, I warn you, young men, 
to give no heed to this doctrine of devils. Trample 
it under your feet. Be assured, these youthful sins 



HIS DANGERS. 89 

will harm you, for they lay the foundation for future 
sorrows, and may cast a blight over your entire life. 
You imagine that you 're having a good time in 
these indulgences, and that once gone you will have 
done with them. But, ah, you are sowing the seed 
for a future harvest — perchance, and very probably, 

Sowing the seed of a lingering pain, 
Sowing the seed of a maddened brain, 
Sowing the seed of a tarnished name, 
Sowing the seed of eternal shame. 

Having warned you against dangerous principles, 
I must warn you now against a few dangerous places. 

Beware of the House of Death. I need not 
particularize. Let those who enter there abandon 
hope. Solomon announced that for one under the 
spell of the strange woman, there was little or no 
chance, and he knew from sad experience what he 
was talking about. Some will think this subject 
should not be mentioned. But if the pulpit can 
not lift its voice in warning against an evil which 
is doing more to corrupt society, and ruin the youth 
of our land, than any other, if not than all others 
combined — what is the use of maintaining the pul- 
pit, or of paying a minister to preach against sin ? 
The Bible speaks plainly enough against this awful 
curse. How can we, then, be silent, how dare we 
be silent, if we would deliver our souls? 



90 THE YOUNG MAN 

Let these young men keep away from such 
places. Remain, if possible, in total ignorance of 
what they are like. If ever you are invited to be- 
come wise upon this point, spurn the invitation 
and loathe the heartless tempter. For mother's 
sake ; for the sake of that pure sister ; for your own 
sake, above all, keep both foot and thought from 
going near such places. 

A boy, climbing among the Alps, saw some flow- 
ers on the verge of a precipice, and sprang forward 
to get them. The guide shouted his warning, but 
the heedless youth grasped the flowers, and then — 
what then? Then, with the flowers in his hand, he 
fell a thousand feet upon the rocks below ! 

Let this incident tell its own story and point its 
own sad moral. 

I have called these places, houses of death. 
This is what they are, and, by right, each should be 
marked as such in letters black as midnight. Not 
far from Salt Lake is a place called "The Valley 
of the Shadow of Death." From the absence of 
oxygen in the atmosphere nothing can live there. 
By peering in from a distance you see the bones of 
hapless victims. They entered, unconscious of 
danger, and were lost. For quite a distance around 
the air is laden with foul smells, and at the entrance 






HIS DANGERS. 91 

to the place is a sign which says, " Death Valley — 
Enter Not." An awful and dangerous place, truly, 
but worse than that are these valleys of moral death, 
for besides undermining health and life, they destroy 
character and ruin the soul. 

Against the saloon I have already warned you. 
This is the vestibule to those fouler places where 
leprosy and death await the visitor. That these 
rum shops are places of danger, their own lights 
indicate. On railroads, and, indeed, almost univer- 
sally in all vocations, the red light is used as a 
warning. It means " Look out! Keep away!" 
What a happy intuition it was that made saloon- 
keepers so generally adopt this light for their sign 
at night. Take the hint, young men, and as you 
value honor, chastity, the love of parents, the re- 
spect of your fellow-men, and your own prospects, 
whether for this world or the world to come, keep 
away from these dangerous pitfalls. 

These saloons are ruining our young men by the 
thousand. What havoc they are working in our own 
community! It would not surprise me if single 
saloons could be found in this city which were vis- 
ited last night by nearly as many young men as can 
be found to-night in all our Churches. A gentle- 
man has assured me, that, on Saturday night a week 



92 THE YOUNG MAN 

ago, he had occasion to stand for half an hour in 
the vicinity of a Main Street saloon, and his state- 
ment is, that, from actual count by the watch, he saw 
seventy-six men come out — seventy-six in thirty 
minutes ! He says, too, that there were, in this 
number, three old men, and seven in middle life, 
and that the remaining sixty-six were young 
men ! Who, after that showing, will underrate 
the peril our young men are in from the saloon, or 
the need there is for words of warning upon this 
subject? 

Beware, also, of the gambling den, and of the 
steps and practices which lead there. No harm in 
cards, do you say? Of course not, if you could 
consider them merely as pieces of stiff paper marked 
with emblems by which a little game may be played 
in the quiet of your own dwellings. But cards 
are everywhere the tools of gamblers, and they 
smell of the foul atmosphere of the gambler's 
haunts. You can not rid them of this incubus — 
the cursed stains of infamy will not out, wash and 
gloss them as you may. No harm in the cards 
themselves; certainly not. No harm in a quiet 
game in a Christian home where the father deals and 
the mother plays ; certainly not, if you could con- 
sider such play apart from its tendencies and asso- 



HIS DANGERS. 93 

ciations. But you can not. The tendencies of a 
practice are inherent to the practice itself, and 
the tendency of cards being bad, we can not coun- 
tenance their use even in the home circle. 

So, young man, better keep free. We do not 
put this danger on a level with the others ; but, 
if this is not the gravest of dangers, it is a danger ; 
nor will any one deny that it constitutes a rock in 
life's sea upon which has been wrecked many 
a stately ship, which otherwise might have weath- 
ered the storms, and anchored safely in the desired 
haven. 

So, too, in regard to ordinary places of amuse- 
ment. We must put you on your guard with ref- 
erence to these. Be not beguiled by their seeming 
innocence. Look at their trend and bent. Observe 
who are their steadiest patrons, and mark the lives 
they live. Scrutinize carefully the entertainment 
provided. Does it scoff at virtue? Does it rail at 
religion? Does it lionize criminals? Does it min- 
ister to base passion ? Does it enervate the mind, 
and throw a false glamour of sentiment over the 
stern facts of this work-a-day life of ours? These 
are the test questions for the ordinary place of 
amusement. And how few such places will stand 
these tests! Again, therefore, I put you on your 



94 THE YOUNG MAN 

guard. I warn you to be careful in regard to such 
places, and to mark them on your chart as places 
in which danger lurks. 

Speaking of charts reminds me of the service 
I have tried to render to-night — that of mapping 
out for these young men a few general rules for 
their guidance in the voyage of life. It reminds 
me to say, also, that the best chart for human guid- 
ance — the only true and perfectly reliable chart — is 
this blessed book of God. Take this in your hand, 
and the Savior in your hearts, and all shall be well 
with you. 

One of the most j)leasant experiences of a jour- 
ney across the ocean is to listen at night to the cry 
of the watchers. " All 's well !" shouts the man at 
the bow ; " All 's well !" responds the man at the 
stern, and the reassuring watchword echoes then 
throughout the ship. I have heard it often, and 
I never did so that I did not ask myself, why all 
was well, and that my thoughts did not wander to 
the officer on the bridge, who, with the charts before 
him and the field-glasses in his hand, watches for 
the dangers, and informs the man at the wheel how 
to steer so as to avoid those dangers. So, to-night, I 
can not help thinking that what these young men 
need, more than any thing else, is first to take this 



HIS DANGERS. 95 

Bible for their chart, and then to choose Christ for 
their watcher and steersman. Take Him aboard — 
promote him to the office of chief pilot in your 
craft, and you may smile at every storm, and look 
with calm indifference upon every rock of peril. 
You may not always in that case have smooth sail- 
ing, but you shall always have safe sailing. He 
may lead you around, as some one has said, but he 
will invariably lead you aright ; for He will guide 
you with his counsel, and afterward receive you to 
glory. 

No : the young man is not safe — not safe by 
nature ; but through the restraints and protections 
of the grace of God, he is safe, and if he but con- 
tinues to trust God, he shall be kept in inviolable 
security and in unbroken composure even unto 
the end. 

Mark this, my friends: not only is the Christian 
religion adapted to youth, but it is sufficient for 
youth. This can keep even the young men. I have 
spoken of the young man's passions. Here is some- 
thing that will curb them, something that will change 
the lion into a lamb, and make the fractious steed 
gentle and useful. I have admonished you of your 
inexperience and of your consequent liability to de- 
ception ; of your sensitiveness, and the danger there 



96 THE YOUNG MAN 

is that you will be impressed more deeply by the 
evil things about you than by the good. I have 
warned you, also, of the snares which environ your 
path, of the false principles which menace your wel- 
fare and the perilous resorts which are wide open 
to you. This is the disease. As a faithful j)hysi- 
cian I have diagnosed it unsparingly. Now I point 
you to the remedy. This is it — 

This love of God, so pure and changeless ; 
This grace of God, so strong and boundless ; 
This blood of Christ, so rich, so free ! 

Here is the remedy — all-sufficient, ever-present, 
and obtainable by all, without money and with- 
out price. 

Let the young men seek this remedy. They 
are not safe without it. They can not be saved 
without it, either from the snares of the world, or 
from the wrath of God. 

When Alexander asked the Scythians what 
they were most afraid of, thinking they would ac- 
knowledge that their greatest fear was of himself 
and his conquering armies, they replied scoffingly 
that they were most afraid lest the heavens should 
fall upon them. 

Of the wrath of heaven let the young man have 
a wholesome fear. Let his fear of God's displeasure 



HIS DANGERS. 97 

be always his greatest dread. Let all have this 
fear in their souls. Let us remember, too, that, 
just as when the fire sweeps the prairie, the only 
safe place is the place which has been already 
burnt, so the only place of safety against the wrath 
of God is at the cross of Jesus, where that wrath 
has already expended itself, and where a full atone- 
ment was made for all sin and for all sinners. 

To that cross let the young people before me 
ever cling. Let us all cling to it under all circum- 
stances ; that so, when anxious friends propound the 
query, Is he safe ? we may each be able to answer 
back, quickly and joyously, " Yes, thank God, we 
are safe — safe from all harm, because saved from 
all sin." 



4 * 



IV. 



UEe; BQ&mgj £|lam amd I|ig 0pp@rt^mitie:s. 



~ * -* 



(ion te urns, 



OW one young man's eyes were opened. — Need of a similar 
operation upon the young men of to-day. — The Spring-time 
of Opportunities. — Symbolism of Nebuchadnezzar's image. — 
Lessons from a dead millionaire. — Interesting Computation by 
DeQuincey. — Lament of a dying soldier. — The forks of the 
road. — Educational advantages of past and present compared. — 
The culpability of ignorance. — Early manhood the pouring-in 
period. — A good way to find out things. — Character and repu- 
tation. — How they are related. — -Plato's advice to one who had 
been slandered. — Transcendent value of a good character. — 
Character as a growth. — Moments of decision in life's battle. — 
Conditions upon which success may be won. — "Creatures of 
circumstances." — Hard work, versus genius. — The man in the 
White House. — Grant's crowning faculty. — Dizzy heights not 
desirable. — The moderate altitudes which ail may climb. — Real 
success certain only to one class. — Wise remark of the philos- 
opher Locke. — Two lives in contrast. — Importance of an early 
choice of religion. 



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IV. 

1 r}e Young Man and \)\s opportunities. 



P P < 



" And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his 
eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the 
young man, and he saw."— 2 Kings vi, 17. 

>HIS young man was Elisha's servant. They 
5 were in Dothan. The youth had risen early 

tthat morning, and in looking abroad had be- 
held a sight which struck terror to his soul. 
The city was encompassed by an army. There 
were horses, chariots, soldiers in great number, and 
every thing was in readiness for a mighty onslaught. 
This host had come from Assyria. War was in 
progress between the two countries, and thus far, in 
every maneuver, the Assyrians had suffered defeat. 
The Israelites seemed to find out every time just 
what the enemy intended, and to be forewarned, 
was, of course, to be forearmed. So continuously 
and so mysteriously were the plans of the Assyrian 

king discovered and thwarted, that he began to 

101 



102 THE YOUNG MAN 

suspect there were traitors in his camp. " Will ye 
not show me/' he said, one day, " which of us is 
for the king of Israel ? " Then, continues the nar- 
rative, " one of his servants said, None, my lord, 
but Elisha, the prophet, he it is who telleth what 
thou speakest in thy bed-chamber ! " 

Learning this, the Assyrian king naturally be- 
came enraged at Elisha, and being informed that 
he was at Dothan, he at once dispatched an army 
to capture him. Here they are now at the city 
gates. Elisha's servant not only sees the soldiers, 
but he divines, no doubt, what is their purpose. 
Hence, he is filled with alarm, his exclamation be- 
ing, " Alas, my master, how shall we do ? " 

Elisha's reply, you anticipate. It is just what 
we might expect from one who knew that the 
resources of omnipotence were at his command. 

"And he answered, Fear not; for they that be 
with us, are more than they that be with them." 

Then follows our text. 

" And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray 
thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord 
opened the eyes of the young man and he saw ; and 
behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots 
of fire round about Elisha." 

In the early morning was this scene enacted, 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 103 

and before me, on this occasion, are many who are 
in the early morning of life. Like the young man 
who was with Elisha, they lack experience. Like 
him, too, they look out upon a warlike host. They 
are surrounded by enemies. They see conflict and 
danger ahead. Of the snares and perils which be- 
set the path of youth, we spoke at length a week 
ago. Viewing the outlook solely from a human 
point of view, there is certainly much to fear. To- 
night, however, I shall ask your attention to the 
bright side of life's prospect. As in the case before 
us, my prayer is, that God may open your eyes. 
If it be important that you see your dangers, no 
less important is it that you have, at the same time, 
a clear view of your advantages and opportunities. 
May God give you such a view to-night! 

There is much in your position to cause alarm ; 
but there are, also, many things to awaken satisfac- 
tion and to inspire hope. I have told you the 
worst as a precaution against recklessness; now I 
shall point out the better features of the situation 
as a stimulus to noble effort. There are many foes 
to guard against, and many battles to fight. It 
were useless to deny this. It would be wicked, in- 
deed, to not emphasize it. Nevertheless, as our text 
suggests, they that be with you are more and greater 



104 THE YOUNG MAN 

than all that be against you ; and again, I pray, 
may God open your eyes to this great truth ! 

In speaking of the young man and his oppor- 
tunities, let me remind you, first, that youth is the 
time when opportunities naturally abound. It is 
the Spring-time of life — the time of budding trees 
and opening flowers ; the time when birds of hope 
begin to sing, and when all nature is full of prom- 
ise. We have opportunities of one kind or another 
later on in life, just as, farther along in the year, 
the flowers blossom and the blades of grass shoot 
up. But youth, like the Spring-time, is the nat- 
ural period for these opening prospects, and the 
time, therefore, when we find them in their greatest 
profusion. 

As regards this point, we have a striking em- 
blem of life in the great image seen by Nebuchad- 
nezzar. The head was of gold. Then came silver ; 
then brass ; then iron ; then, at the feet, part iron, 
and part clay. Thus, from stage to stage, the ma- 
terial degenerated gradually until the lowest grade 
was reached. So in life, as regards the opportuni- 
ties we enjoy. Youth and early manhood are the 
golden period; our chances and prospects deterio- 
rating thereafter, until, in extreme old age, they are 
entirely gone. 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 105 

O, if our young men only knew this, and would 
but act with reference to it as they should ! One 
of the mottoes on the Temple of Delphos called 
upon the worshipers to know their opportunities. 
God help these young men to know their opportu- 
nities, and to remember especially that this is the 
period of life in which they have more and better 
opportunities than they can possibly expect, or, in 
the nature of things, could possibly have at any 
subsequent period. 

Eecurring for a moment to the young man's 
dangers, I must say that one of the very greatest 
of these is the danger of underrating his privileges, 
and of letting these halcyon days of youth go by 
unimproved. He does not see things as he should. 
He is pining for chances, and the mountain about 
him is full of them — horses and chariots of fire, 
which, harnessed to his service, would carry him 
anywhere. He has an infinite treasure in his pos- 
session, and he treats it as if it were a worthless 
bauble. Like the boy, who, in gathering pebbles, 
picked up a precious stone, and, not knowing its 
worth, made a plaything of it, so, I fear, many 
of these young men, unconscious of its inestimable 
value, are making a plaything of life ! When, how- 
ever, the boy's father had cut the excrescences from 



106 THE YOUNG MAN 

the gem, and had squared and polished it, his eyes 
were opened ; for he saw, then, that that which he had 
treated so lightly was a glistening diamond ! O, for 
a similar opening of eyes to-night ! 

Kemember, in the second place, that these 
golden opportunities of youth are fast departing. 

During this week the richest man in the world 
has died. His millions could not save him. In 
heated controversy with a friend, he was stricken 
down, without a moment's notice, by an enemy 
who allows no controversy. I do not refer to Mr. 
Vanderbilt merely to admonish you, from his fate, 
to be ready to die, though his sudden departure 
might well serve this purpose ; nor do I hold him 
up as an example before these young men. He had 
streaks of goodness in his nature, and he did, in his 
life, many most commendable deeds. Still he was 
a man of the world, a devotee of Mammon, and I 
want you to be men of God, worshipers and fol- 
lowers of Jesus. We refer to this dead millionaire 
simply to quote for your benefit some valuable ad- 
vice he gave once to a young friend in whose suc- 
cess he felt a deep interest. We may learn lessons 
of prudence from his lips, though we must not copy 
his life. 

" These are hard times/' he said to this young 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 107 

man, " and very few are prosperous. Do n't let this 
opportunity slip. This is your harvest. Do n ? t 
neglect it, and you will always thank nie'for press- 
ing it upon you." 

Such was the advice given by Mr. Vanderbilt, 
and it is my advice to you. This, my young 
friends, is your harvest-time. Opportunities abound 
on every hand, and they are fast departing. I beg 
you, therefore, to seize and use and make the most 
of these opportunities. 

It were well for you to remember that life itself 
is fast passing away. A common danger of youth 
is to think that our existence on earth extends over 
a long period, and that it advances to its termina- 
tion slowly, whereas the very opposite is the case. 
A good way to avoid this danger is to reduce the 
years to days, and then see how few we have which 
can really be called working days. Thomas De 
Quincey makes an interesting computation upon 
this point. " Seventy years of life," he says, " yield 
a total of days amounting to 25,550. But remem- 
ber," he adds, " that twenty years have gone before 
beginning — before having attained any skill or sys- 
tem, or any definite purpose in the distribution of 
time. This takes off 7,300 days, and leaves 18,250. 
Then, out of this you have to deduct one-third for 



108 THE YOUNG MAN 

the single item of sleep, tins leaving 12,170 days. 
Once more/' De Quincey says, " on account of 
illness, of recreation, and the serious occupations 
spread over the surface of life, it will be little enough 
to deduct another third. This leaves 8,110 days. 
Finally/' he says, " deduct from these the smallest 
proper amount for attendance upon the animal ne- 
cessities — eating, drinking, washing, bathing, and 
exercise — and you will have left not more than 
about 4,000 days — 4,000 days in a long life, or, in 
other words, eleven and a half years for the direct 
development of that which is most august in the 
nature of man! Then the night of death, when 
further work will be impossible." 

What a computation ! A little overdrawn, per- 
haps, but not much. And how it should arouse 
us — every one of us — particularly the young, who 
are in such danger of squandering their time, from 
the mistaken notion they have of the amount at 
their disposal ! Remember, my young friends, that 
the golden opportunities of youth are fast depart- 
ing, and that life itself will soon be gone ; and let 
the recollection of this fact stimulate us to activity. 
Truly, as Bonar says : 

'T is not for man to trifle ! Life is brief, 
And sin is here ; 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 109 

Our age is but the falling of a leaf, 
A dropping tear. 
We have no time to sport away the hours ; 
All must be earnest in a world like ours. 

Not many lives, but only one have we — 

One, only one; 
How sacred should that one life be, 
That narrow span ! 
Day after day filled up with blessed toil, 
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil. 

To remind you that the opportunities of youth, 
once departed, can never be recalled, may seem to 
some unnecessary, the truth beiug so palpably self- 
evident. The trouble is, however, that so many 
seem to ignore this truth. Do you observe that 
soldier dying on yonder battle-field? His lips 
move ; he is evidently speaking. Stoop down and 
listen. Ah, his dying moan is the wish of erring 
millions. It is the sad and vain lament, " O that 
I were a boy again \" Not all utter such a lament 
at the close of life, but many do ; the majority do ; 
and my fear is that many of these young men will 
vainly wish, after awhile, that they could surround 
themselves again with the opportunities of their 
early manhood. 

The " tide in the affairs of men, which, taken 
at the flood, leads on to fortune," comes usually 

very early in life. But young men are not looking 

10 



110 THE YOUNG MAN. 

for it ; they are unaware of its importance. Hence, 
in the majority of instances, they miss it. To 
change the figure, you are now, my young friends, 
at the forks of the road. To the right is a high- 
way, leading to happiness, honor, glory ; to the left, 
a road leading to misery, to failure, to shame. This 
is the time to strike out to the right. You will 
never have so good a chance in all your lives; for 
once get started on the wrong road, and the only 
way to reach the other road is by cutting across 
country, through dense forests and slimy bogs; 
and the farther you have proceeded, when you at- 
tempt the change, the harder will it go with you. 
" What !" says some one, " can I not come back ? 
Can I not retrace my steps until I reach the forks 
again ?" No, sir ; never. Time gone can never be 
recalled. Opportunities wasted never come again 
in so favorable a form. Youth, once departed, is 
gone forever, and all its peculiar advantages go with 
it. O, I want these young men to remember this. 
They know it, but I want them to keep it in view. 
As Stoddard says, so forcibly and beautifully : 

There are gains for all our losses, 

There are balms for all our pain ; 
But when youth, the dream, departs, 
It takes something from our hearts, 
And it never comes again. 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. Ill 

We are stronger, and are better, 
Under manhood's sterner reign ; 

Still Ave feel that something sweet 

Followed youth, w T ith flying feet, 
And will never come again. 

Something beautiful is vanished, 

And we sigh for it in vain ; 
We behold it everywhere, 
On the earth and in the air ; 

But it never comes again. 

Now, from generalities let us come to particulars. 

Among the special advantages enjoyed by young 
men, I mention first, the fine opportunity they have 
for acquiring a large amount of interesting and ser- 
viceable knowledge. 

In the facilities you possess in this regard, how 
much better off are you than were your fathers at 
your age! What were mysteries to them in the 
great realm of science, are clear as daylight to your 
vision. Think of the discoveries of these later 
years ! How wise is this old world to-day as com- 
pared with its condition when these gray-haired 
veterans were boys. And while the sum total of 
knowledge has increased so marvelously, there has, 
happily, been a corresponding increase in the facili- 
ties for disseminating what has been learned. What 
a grand heritage have we in our common schools! 
Every one can attend these, and those who avail 



112 THE YOUNG MAN 

themselves of all the advantages there afforded are 
not far behind the college graduate of a former age. 
Then, how many higher schools of learning have 
we! How exalted, too, is their standard of scholar- 
ship, and at the same time, to any deserving young 
man, how easy the terms of entrance ! Look, more- 
over, at our printing presses, our books, our news- 
papers, our institutes, our reading-rooms, and the 
various other appliances at work amongst us for the 
education of youth. Verily, these young men are 
privileged indeed — privileged beyond the youth of 
any former period in our own country — privileged 
far beyond the youth of any other country at this 
period. 

Not to know a great deal in these days, is, not 
only to be placed at a serious disadvantage in life, 
but it is to show, also, a culpable indifference to 
our surroundings. It is to walk in the midst of 
light and keep our eyes closed — groping our way 
slowly and painfully, when we might be running 
with alacrity and joy — stumbling, and causing others 
to stumble, when, if we but improved our advan- 
tages, we might advance through life with sure step 
and be a help, rather than a hindrance, to our fellow 
pilgrims ! 

Remember, too, that youth is your gathering 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 113 

season, as regards education. Pythagoras was right 
in admonishing his pupils to give the early years 
of life to hearing and learning. This is the natural 
order. After a while you will be called upon to 
pour out what you know ; this is the time to pour 
it in. You will learn much later on. In one sense 
you will be at school till your dying day. Really, 
however, in the true sense, this is your school period. 
It is so in the case of all these young men, though 
most of them are in business by this time. Yes, 
you are at work, but you are still at school, and 
you should still regard yourselves as students. O, 
I pray God to open your eyes that you may see how 
little you know, and how much there is that you 
can readily learn — much, very much, which, if not 
learned now, will probably never be acquired, for 
in later years you may have neither time, nor 
ability, nor inclination for these studies. 

While, however, much is to be gathered from 
books, much, also, can be learned from experience 
and from observation. A good way to find out 
things is to ask questions. Go through life, my 
young friends, at once with a look of curiosity in 
your gaze, and with a note of interrogation upon 
your lips. You are traveling through a most inter- 
esting country on a railroad train. You have never 



114 THE YOUNG MAN 

traveled this way before. So, keep your wits about 
you and your eyes open. Do n't sit down and com- 
pose yourself, at the beginning of the journey, for 
a nap, as some passengers do; but prepare to learn. 
Study the train, watch carefully the movements of 
your fellow-passengers, and look through the win- 
dows frequently at the beautiful and ever-varying 
landscapes around you. Thus shall the time pass 
both pleasantly and profitably, and in future years 
the knowledge you have gained may be better to 
you than a fortune. 

I mention, again, among the opportunities of 
these young men, that of acquiring a good character 
and of building up about you an enviable reputation. 

A man's character is what a man is in himself; 
his reputation is what he is esteemed to be by the 
outside world. The two things are not the same, 
and yet they are intimately related. Generally 
speaking, the character determines the reputation. 
Not always. Occasionally very bad men pass them- 
selves off as being very good, and those who are 
grossly ignorant and incapable, as having great 
knowledge and skill. Sooner or later, however, 
these frauds are detected, and the world puts upon 
them its brand of disapproval. You will find, too, 
that the world will discover in the long run, not 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 115 

only who are bad, but who are good, and both, 
finally, will get their deserts. 

For a man of blameless character to groan per- 
manently under the incubus of a bad reputation, is 
one of the impossibilities. No, sir. People may 
throw mud at such a man, but it won't stick. 
Plato's advice to one who had been maligned, was 
to live so that nobody would believe what was 
charged. This every really good man is sure to do. 
He is sure to live in such a way that erelong the 
mists of slander will be dissipated, and his true 
character shine out, clearly and brightly as the sun 
when the fogs and clouds of the early morning have 
been overcome. 

Thus character and reputation, though not 
strictly one, are so closely allied that they become 
one in their unfoldings and in the final judgment 
passed upon us by our fellow-men — a fact which 
can not be too forcibly emphasized. 

The importance of a good character and of a 
reputation corresponding thereto, we need scarcely 
take the time to emphasize. Eeputation is money 
to a man. It secures him position ; it is the lever- 
age by means of which he gets on in the world — 
his passport to honor and respectability. Did you 
ever see a bird trying to fly with its wings clipped? 



116 THE YOUNG MAN. 

That's how it is with a man who tries to rise in 
the world when he has no reputation to go upon. 
Can you conceive how a sailing ship could make 
progress at sea with no canvass up ? Then can you 
form an idea of the difficulty of sailing over life's 
sea with no reputation by which to catch and utilize 
the favoring breezes which blow. And every fact 
or thought which shows the value of reputation is 
an argument for character, for the former is the out- 
growth of the latter. 

Character, let us also remember, is something 
which develops by slow degrees. It has been aptly 
compared to the icicle, which is formed drop by 
drop, each drop answering to some word or act. 
Men can not put on a good character, as they can a 
new suit of clothes. It is an inner development, 
which expands with time, and which is as much a 
part of the inner self as the brain which throbs out 
our thoughts, or the heart which sends the life blood 
coursing through our veins. Necessarily, therefore, 
the beginnings of character must be in youth, just 
as in youth these frames take on their contour, and 
the functions of body and mind begin to operate. 
Afterwards, too, character, like the bodily and 
mental organs, grows with our growth and strength- 
ens with our strength. 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 117 

Such is character. Such are its formations and 
earliest processes. 

We all have a character of some kind. We all 
need a good one. Otherwise we are weighted down 
in life's race, and hampered for its conflicts. Given 
a good character, and you shall be like Samson in 
his glory, a giant of strength, with the world un- 
der your feet, and the gates of every Gaza of priv- 
ilege on your back ; but divested of this requisite, 
you shall be like Samson shorn — the sport of ad- 
verse circumstances and useful to others only as an 
awful example. 

The importance, the absolute necessity of a good 
character in order to happiness and usefulness in 
life, is unquestionable, and I pray God to open 
your eyes that you may see, that, what is thus in- 
clespensable to your welfare, is also within your 
reach. This charter of moral freedom — this pass- 
port to the best society ; this " Open Sesame " which 
no door of honor can resist — this fortress of integ- 
rity in which, like Stephen of Colonna, you may 
find sure refuge when every other fortress has gone — 
you may have it if you will — you may all have it ; 
and the time to acquire it is now — now while the 
mind is pliable and the heart tender, and while you 

still tarry at the threshold of your active career. 

11 



118 THE YOUNG MAN 

In every battle there are a few moments of de- 
cision — a few moments, when, by desperate fight- 
ing or skillful strategy, the result is determined. 
Often, too, in these crucial moments, is victory 
snatched from the very jaws of defeat. The real 
moments of decision in the great battle upon which 
these young men are entering, are these pregnant 
moments of their early manhood. The struggle now 
is within ; but as goes this inner conflict, so, later 
on, will go the fierce battle outside; for as Long- 
fellow says: 

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, 
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, 
But in ourselves is victory or defeat. 

May God open the eyes of these young men, so 
that they may see and understand this. 

Our next proposition follows in natural sequence 
from the last. 

I want to impress upon these young men, that 
if they use aright the opportunities of their early 
manhood, they may confidently expect a reasonable 
degree of success in life. 

You can win, if you set out to win, and use the 
means. You can win or you can lose — you will win 
or you will lose, accordingly as your aims are right or 
wrong, your character faulty or invulnerable, your 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 119 

life idle or energetic. I want yon to remember 
that you hold your destiny in your own hands. It 
is immaterial what are your surroundings. The life 
buoy floats in the stormiest sea, because it is its na- 
ture to do so. The sea-bird not only rides the gale, 
but from its instincts and endowments exults in 
such exercise. O, young men, I want to tell you, 
that if you 're of the right metal, and have the 
right endowments, no sea of adversity will ever sink 
you — no storm of opposition ever turn you aside. 
We talk of men being "creatures of circum- 
stances." They are sometimes, and in some re- 
gards doubtless; but they have the power to be 
makers of circumstances. With a brave heart and 
a firm will, you can bend and fashion circumstances, 
as the blacksmith, by hard blows, bends and shapes 
the heated iron. I repeat, therefore, you can all 
conquer success if you start right and keep at it. 
You may do this even though your talents are in- 
ferior, for other causes contribute to success much 
more frequently than brilliant endowments. Very 
often, indeed, extraordinary talents are a snare 
rather than a help, for they foster conceit and lead 
to many ruinous excesses. The tortoise wins the 
race, slow though he be, oftener than the fleet-footed 
hare, because the former knows he must do his 



120 THE YOUNG MAN 

best, and does it, while the latter is too often lulled 
by his conscious superiority into indifference. Mark 
this: the high places in this world are filled, usually, 
not by brilliant men, but by earnest men, by steady 
goers, by hard-workers. Such as these scale the 
loftiest heights, while genius pines often in seclu- 
sion, and sometimes, alas, rolls in the gutter. 

It is not a brilliant man who occupies the White 
House to-day, but a conscientious plodder, one 
whose obvious motto through life, despite his mis- 
takes, has been to do well, as Carlyle has advised, 
the duty that lay nearest to him, deeming that, at 
once, his highest glory, and his best preparation for 
what might come after. There were many men in 
the army more brilliant than Grant, but he had the 
grand faculty of holding on. So if you go among 
successful men of business. They have no more 
brains, and they had no better opportunities, than 
thousands of men who have made a failure in life. 
The difference is, however, that the former planned 
and toiled, while the latter dreamed of fortune and 
forgot to seek it. 

We would not, of course, rule Providence out 
of the calculation. We are aware that sometimes 
the wise hand of God may hold men back in these 
matters. This, however, is the exception, not the 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 121 

rule, and I reaffirm, with reference to these young 
men, that, as certainly as life is before them, they 
can make it successful, if they will. Not that all 
can reach the highest summits. That, for most of 
us, is neither possible nor desirable. You can not 
all be Presidents ; possibly not one of you ever 
will be. Nor can all be mighty Generals like the 
one whom our Nation followed lately to a tomb at 
which the world wept. Nor, thank God, can we all 
amass such wealth as Vanderbilt controlled ; and I 
say thank God, because I am sure that Vander- 
bilt's money, while it entailed tremendous respon- 
sibilities, and brought him prematurely to his grave, 
did not bring him either true happiness or substan- 
tial honor. * 

You may not scale these loftiest heights, and it 
is not desirable, for such high climbing makes men 
dizzy, and exposes them to great danger. But 
to moderate altitudes of success, you may ascend, 
and as certainly as you use aright your present op- 
portunities, you shall do this. Not one shall fail 
who watches all the points and puts forth all his 
energies. Some may get higher than others, but all 
shall get high enough. You may not count your 
wealth by millions, but you shall have a sufficiency. 
You may wield no ruler's scepter ; but, by virtue of 



122 THE YOUNG MAN. 

a good character and a useful life, you shall hold 
sway over your fellow men. No slab of marble or 
pillar of shining granite may perpetuate your name ; 
but it shall be written in imperishable letters upon 
the times in which you lived, and upon the tablet 
of grateful human hearts. The nation may not weep 
when you die, but you shall be missed, you shall be 
wept over ; and whatever of dignity or grandeur may 
be lacking in your funeral pageant shall be abundantly 
made up in the welcome the angels shall give you 
on the other side ; for, as the apostle says, if we give 
all diligence to make our calling successful and our 
election sure, not only shall we never fail, but, 
when all is finished here, an entrance will be min- 
istered to us abundantly into the everlasting king- 
dom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

This, however, bear in mind, is all predicated of 
you upon the presumption that you intend to be, 
not merely good, honest young men, but Christian 
young men. To stop short of this is to stop short 
of a full equipment. To stop short of this is to 
run a fearful risk, even as regards this world, 
while so far as your prospects for the other are con- 
cerned, unless you are a Christian, you have none, 
for, in that case, you are without God and without 
hope. 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 123 

Upon your choice of this good part of religion 
your future happiness depends. Money does not 
make men happy ; it only adds to their cares and 
perils. The same is true of fame. The world's 
plaudits may ring in your ears, but there is no 
music in these to lull a troubled conscience to sleep, 
or to satisfy the cravings of an immortal soul. 
There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. 
Only the righteous have peace — only Christians can 
know what true happiness is. 

It is a remark of the philosopher Locke that 

"there is no satisfaction in life except in doing good 

and in the hopes of a future life/' and this accords 

with all Scripture and with all experience. 

No man e'er gained a happy life by chance, 
Or yawned it into being with a wish. 

In fact, no man ever gained a happy life in any 
way excepting in this one way, viz., by loving and 
serving God. 

This, moreover, is essential to your security, as 
well as to your happiness. Fail to give your heart 
to Christ, and the Devil has it, the chances being 
that he will ruin it, and will make an utter wreck 
of your prospects in life. That convict was 
right in concluding that the lack of religion 
was the one deficiency which had brought him to 



124 THE YOUNG MAN. 

disgrace. He saw that day in the prison pulpit one 
who had been the companion of his boyhood. At 
the close of the service they met. " How comes 
this?" said the minister. "All," replied the con- 
vict, "because, in youth, I did not choose as you 
did. We sat," said he, "on the same bench at 
school, and were surrounded by the same associa- 
tions up to a certain period. Then you became a 
Christian, and I took sin for my portion. Now you 
are an honored minister, and I a convict, in for life." 
Ah, he was right. But for this one deficiency that 
wretched convict might have been equally happy 
and equally honored with the other man. 

Not that all who fail to accept Christ will come 
to the penitentiary, or that any will, of ne- 
cessity. I hold out no such idea as this. I can 
not assure you that if you become Christians you 
will scale the highest summits of earthly greatness, 
nor can I say, on the other hand, that if you reject 
this good part you will sink into disgrace. What 
I do say is this : that if you become Christians you 
will be safe — but that if you are not Christians you 
will not be safe, but will be in constant danger, for 
you will fight, in that case, destitute of both armor 
and weapons, and will attempt to navigate life's 
stormy and perilous ocean without either ballast to 



BIS OPPORTUNITIES. 125 

steady you, a pilot to guide you, or a port of des- 
tination in view. 

Xow, my young friends, I ask you, in closing, 
what is your determination? Of the two courses 
open to you, which will you choose? Shall it be 
life or death, blessing or cursing, happiness or mis- 
ery, heaven or hell? Which shall it be? You are 
just starting in life and a blank book is placed in 
your hand. Its pages are stainless. You must 
write upon them. You must fill up that book. It 
is your record, and it will meet you at the judg- 
ment day. What will you write? Shall its con- 
tents at last be such as may be scanned with a 
smile of satisfaction, or shall they be such, that, when 
you look at them, they will crimson your cheeks 
with eternal shame ? Which shall it be ? 

A block of virgin marble is before you, and in 
your hands are the tools of a sculptor. You must 
work upon that marble block. You are working 
upon it. At present but a few rough pieces have 
been chiseled off. Shortly, the design will begin to 
appear ; then, at length, clear and distinct, the figure 
will stand out. What shall it be? It will repre- 
sent your character and destiny. Shall it be an 
angel or shall it be a demon? 

You. are charged with the erection of a house. 



126 THE YOUNG MAN. 

You are already building. You are laying the 
foundation. You can make it strong or weak — 
durable or transient. The foundation laid, you 
can erect upon it a stately mansion, or you can run 
up a wretched hovel. Which shall it be? 

You are embarking on a journey. It will be 
long ; it will be cold, and it will be hazardous from 
wild beasts. Will you go empty-handed, or will 
you take a rifle and a warm blanket, and an ample 
supply of clothing? 

You are building a ship. Now is the time to 
thoroughly equip it. Storms are sure to come, and 
you will need protection against them. Will you 
provide these necessary appliances now, or will you 
wait and vainly wish for them when you are caught 
in the teeth of the hurricane, or are stranded on 
some hidden rock? Which shall it be? 

I have seen a picture somewhere of a man to 
whom an angel holds out a glittering crown; but 
the poor fellow is so engrossed in raking stubble 
that he does not notice the celestial visitant. O, 
young men, and young women, too, angelic hands 
are offering you a crown. Will you accept it? 
The world's stubble, or the fadeless diadem of 
glory — which shall it be? 

Like Elisha and his servant, you are environed 



HIS OPPORTUNITIES. 127 

by enemies. Will you go forth to cope with them 
alone, or will you engage for your assistance the 
chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof? The 
air about you is pregnant with spiritual influences. 
On the adjacent mountains are all the hosts of 
heaven. God himself is near you. 

It is said to have been the proud boast of Pom- 
pey that by one stamp of his foot he could summon 
all Italy to arms ; but greater influence have you, 
for, by a feeble cry for help, you can summon all 
heaven to arms, and bring to your aid the resources 
of Omnipotence. These resources, in fact, are here 
already. They are all about you — ready to your 
hand, waiting to do your bidding, able to deliver 
you, and to bring you off more than conquerors. 
My prayer is, therefore, that God may open your 
eyes, so that you may see these helpful agencies, 
and that when you see them you may avail your- 
selves of their gracious assistance, exclaiming, as 
you go forth with firm step and courageous heart to 
the great conflicts of life, " Through God we shall 
do valiantly ; for He it is who shall tread down all 



(si 



w 



m Part II. 

1)0 Y0UNG W.0MEN. 



~ * *- 



V. 



0®r girl's : $Jfiat will f Bear ©B©iee He ? 



*- ~*~ 



(90NTENTS, 



JAUL as an example to modern ministers. — Woman's freedom 
and the responsibilities arising therefrom. — Woman as a 
controlling force in the world. — Illustrations of womanly in- 
fluence. — The intellectual sphere. — Importance to girlhood of 
early schooling. — Woman's mission, and how she may best fit 
herself to fulfill it. — Girls who have "finished their educa- 
tion." — The best accomplishments. — The choice of our girls 
within the secular sphere. — Why girls should prepare to be self- 
supporting. — The busy women of the New Testament. — The 
girls who are most honored. — One cause of sin and folly in 
girls. — Changelessness of woman's nature. — The sphere of 
labor in which women most excel. — Woman's choice within the 
social realm. — How to secure a good husband. — Why so many 
marriages are unhappy. — Their bridal sometimes a burial to 
girls. — Folly of trying to catch a husband. — The kind of young 
men to avoid. — Warnings against the dude, the spendthrift, the 
swearer, and the drinker. — What girls should do with the young 
man addicted to his cups. — The kind of young man to marry. — 
The spiritual realm. — Something one young lady had not 
thought of. — The Artful Abbot. — Reasons for choosing Christ. — 
Womanly aspirations and the Christian religion. — The loveliest 
of human characters. — Two touching death scenes. 



|||||||illllll!l!!lli!!::;! : ! '1 Illllllllllllllllllllil lllllllllllllllillllllllll 




llllllllll 



Our Girls : WqctI" will \\)e'\r Choice Be f 



" Teach the young women."— Titus ii, 4. 

jyJjT may be justly inferred from this text that 
the young women need teaching, and if an 
apostle felt constrained to write upon this 
subject, it surely is one upon which the Chris- 
tian minister ought to preach occasionally. 

Paul addressed himself to all classes. Nor was 
he content to generalize ; he stooped to particulars. 
Aware that persons of different ages and stations 
must necessarily differ in their temptations and ca- 
pabilities, he varied his teachings accordingly. For 
each he had a word in season, and ever and anon, 
in his writings, he made special appeals to these 
various classes. In one place he addresses em- 
ployers of labor, and, shortly thereafter, the em- 
ployes come in for a share in his attention. Hus- 
bands and wives are also favored with words of 
12 133 



134 OUR GIRLS. 

special counsel. So are fathers and children. So, 
again, are widows. He also addresses the rich, and 
in the same connection he gives suitable admoni- 
tions to the poor. Young men, likewise, are objects 
of peculiar solicitude to Paul. So are old men and 
old women ; and so, too, as our text proves, are 
young women. 

Thus the preaching of special sermons to special 
classes is by no means an innovation. It is a cus- 
tom which prevailed with the very earliest preach- 
ers. The apostles did it. They felt the necessity 
for such teaching, and no doubt, too, they saw in 
the results, as we are hoping to do, how sensible 
and profitable was such a course. 

The theme to-day is, " Our Girls : What will 
Their Choice Be?" 

We congratulate the girls, first, upon the fact 
that they are allowed, in all matters of moment, to 
exercise choice. 

You are free. In some countries womanhood 
groans in bondage. She is the slave of cruel laws 
and of base men. She can do only as she is allowed 
or bidden. Others choose for her, and her life is 
what others make it. But here, thank God, it is 
different. Our women are free, and our girls, no 
less than our boys, shape their own character, and 



THEIR CHOICE. 135 

determine their own destiny. To be sure, whole- 
some restraints are thrown about the blossoming 
womanhood of our land. You will find on every 
side, not only guards against evil, but guides and 
helps to goodness as well. Still, you are free agents. 
You can overleap these bars, if you will, and if you 
want to be so foolish, you may turn your backs 
upon all these aids to virtue. In all matters affect- 
ing your highest welfare you are allowed your free 
choice. I congratulate you upon this fact. I call 
upon you to rejoice in it. 

Nevertheless I would have you rejoice with 
trembling. 'T is a great boon, this boon of social 
and moral freedom ; but think of the responsibili- 
ties arising from it, and of the awful consequences 
which may ensue from the neglect or abuse of these 
responsibilities. Not only will your own welfare be 
affected by your decisions at this period of life, but, 
for good or ill, your conduct will affect many 
others. 

The influence of woman is well-nigh inestimable. 
It is really the controlling force in this world — 
greater than money, mightier even than the ballot. 
The women of a country determine its morals. 
They make our homes what they are ; they are the 
mothers and the fashioners of the coming men. 



136 OUR GIRLS. 

Some one has said, " Let me write the songs of a 
nation, and I care not who makes its laws;" the 
idea being that our e very-day ditties are more po- 
tential than legislation in shaping our national char- 
acter. Compared, however, with the influence which 
women exert, the popular airs we sing are not 
worthy of mention. As a matter of fact, the 
women of a nation inspire both its songs and 
its laws. 

Because, therefore, so much depends upon them, 
I admonish these young women to be careful of 
their conduct, and to use their social and moral 
freedom with the utmost circumspection. They are 
greatly favored ; but they are, at the same time, 
weighted with a fearful responsibility. We con- 
gratulate them upon their opportunities, but we 
warn them, likewise, of their dangers, and of the 
strict account they must give to God. If it be true 
that no man liveth to himself, how much more true 
of womankind ! 

The pebble dropped into the lake forms a ring 
on the surface, which continues to extend until the 
banks are reached. The words we speak cause a 
pulsation in the atmosphere which does not cease, 
we are told, until the tiny air-wave has encircled 
the globe ! Apt symbols, these, of that subtle 






THEIR CHOICE. 137 

thing which we call influence — particularly of 
woman's influence. Is it surprising, therefore, that 
we are interested in the moral and religious decis- 
ions of these young ladies, and that we are solicitous 
to know what their choice will be in these grave 
matters ? 

To descend for a moment to the intellectual 
sphere, I ask, first, What will your choice be as 
regards education? 

Many girls are left to decide how long they shall 
attend school. We think, when our children are 
young, that we will have our own way in the settle- 
ment of this question. But how few feel like com- 
pelling their girls to remain at school, when they 
see that school-life has become a burden, and from 
its irksomeness has ceased to be beneficial ! Thus, 
finally, in most cases the girls themselves deter- 
mine this important question. 

What will their choice be ? 

If they are wise, they will cling to those school 
books just as long as possible, and will make the 
most diligent use of them. The proper improve- 
ment of their school privileges is more important in 
the case of girls than of boys, though it is of great 
consequence to both. The boy, however, has a 
better chance afterwards than the girl. His business 



138 OUR GIRLS. 

may aid in the development of his mind. His con- 
tact with the bustling world will also tend to 
brighten him. Moreover, the average boy will 
have more time in future life than the average girl 
for reading. Assuming that they enter the married 
state, look at the contrast between them. The man 
works a given number of hours; the woman's work 
is never done. The man can call his evenings his 
own. The woman's evenings must be devoted to 
the children. 

Thus, your girlhood, my young friends, is not only 
the best time for acquiring an education, but it is likely 
to be, with many of you, the only convenient time 
you will ever have. What, then, will your choice be? 

The opportunities are at hand for a thorough 
mental equipment. They are available equally to 
both sexes. Time was, not many years ago either, 
when the girls were at a serious disadvantage in 
regard to scholastic privileges. But now they can 
tread the paths of knowledge side by side with the 
sterner sex. No avenues are closed to them — no 
heights are deemed too high for them to climb. 
What your brother can learn, you have the privi- 
lege of learning. No less than he, moreover, will 
you need this school knowledge in future years. 

Women need learning both for use and for orna- 



THEIR CHOICE. 139 

ment. Their mission in this world is like that of 
the stars. They were intended to shine. A really 
educated woman does shine, and where is the true 
man who does not rejoice in her light. Education 
gives, at once, an additional charm to womanly 
beauty, and an added strength to her virtue, while 
it increases her influence in about the proportion in 
which a burnished reflector gives brilliancy and 
penetrative power to the otherwise dull flame of the 
lamp in front of yon locomotive. 

An educated woman will shine in whatever 
sphere she may move — no less in the lower than in 
the higher walks of life — equally in the kitchen and 
the nursery as in the drawing-room and the brilliant 
social gathering. 

We ask these girls again, therefore, what will 
your choice be? This is the time for acquiring an 
education. How are you using it ? With some the 
school life may be already ended. Possibly, too, 
you think from this fact that your education is 
finished. But what a mistake ! People do not 
finish their education like you finish a picture, and 
then frame it and hang it up to look at. It is a 
life-work really. We must touch it up every day. 

It has been well said that we all receive two 
educations — that which is given to us, and that 



140 OUR GIRLS. 

which we give ourselves. The girls who have left 
school, from having been taught by others, are be- 
ginning now to be their own instructors. What 
will their choice be ? They ought to read diligently. 
Will they do it ? There are many accomplishments 
to be acquired. Will they acquire these? Upon 
this latter point, viz., the accomplishments which 
are possible to our girls in this age, I will only say, 
that, while I would allow them the widest field, and 
the largest liberty of choice, I would still have them 
remember, that those are the most valuable acquire- 
ments which promise to be of the greatest service 
in life; for, as an eminent writer well observes, 
"Women, so amiable in themselves, are never so 
amiable as when they are useful ; and as for beauty, 
though men may fall in love with girls at play, 
there is nothing to make them stand to their love 
like seeing them at work." 

This brings us naturally to our next observation. 

I ask these girls, in the second place, what w 7 ill 
your choice be as regards your occupation in life? 

The more we reflect upon the subject, the deeper 
are our convictions that all girls ought to fit them- 
selves for some calling. In many cases this is 
necessary, and it is always prudential. Even the 
girl who is raised in the lap of luxury should do 






THEIR CHOICE. 141 

this. She may never need to work, but she should 
learn to work. In the first place she requires the 
discipline of labor; and, then, she ought not to be 
deprived of the pleasure of work. What misery so 
intolerable as that arising from ennui, superinduced 
by idleness, and what joy so keen as that which 
springs from the consciousness that we are doing 
something in the world ! Carlyle holds that not to 
be at work is the greatest unhappiness humanity 
can experience. " The latest gospel in this world," 
he says, "is to know thy work and do it." 

The prominent women of the New Testament 
were all busy women, but one. Martha was the 
most industrious of housekeepers. Mary Magdalen 
and the other women of Galilee, though in good 
position, acted as servants to the apostles, minis- 
tering unto them. The devout Lydia was a worker 
in purple and fine linen. Dorcas made garmeuts for 
the poor. AH did something, except Mary, and she 
is presented to us, sitting at the feet of Jesus, it 
has always seemed to me, partly as a foil to set off 
the activity of the others, and partly to emphasize 
the fact that we must be, not only active, but re- 
ligious, and must seek preparation for life's duties 
by waiting upon God. 

The absurd notion that it is degrading in a young 
13 



142 OUR GIRLS. 

woman to engage in honest toil, is about exploded. 
People are beginning to see now that the girls who 
make themselves independent by preparing to earn 
their own living are the only ones, really, who de- 
serve to be honored, as they are also, obviously, the 
only ones for whom a secure and happy future can 
be predicted. 

Fortune may not always smile. Riches may 
make to themselves wings and fly away. In place 
of the bright skies and flowery pathways you now 
enjoy, clouds of adversity and thorns of want may 
come. Then, how will you do, with no calling to 
depend upon, and no accomplishment you can utilize? 
Hands that never learned to toil are poor levers 
with which to push your way through an obstinate 
world like this ! 

How many girls have contracted ill-timed and 
ill-advised marriages simply because they either 
could not or would not support themselves ! How 
many, too, in critical moments, have fallen from 
virtue for the same reason ! 

The ability to earn her own livelihood being, 
thus, so essential to woman's welfare, what an occasion 
for rejoicing is it that so many occupations are open 
to her. Each year, too, adds to the number of 
these open doors. Woman now is restricted in 



THEIR CHOICE. 143 

her choice of a profession or calling by neither 
law nor public sentiment. The only limitations 
are in her own physical organization. What she 
can do, she may do. 

The cry all along, as woman's sphere has widened, 
has been that these larger opportunities would un- 
sex her : but the best refutation of this prophecy is 
in the fact that in this latter quarter of the nine- 
teenth century, when she elbows man in nearly all 
the pursuits in which brute strength is not a prime 
requisite, she was never purer, never gentler, never 
more womanly. As an eminent living divine has 
said : " A woman's nature will never be changed. 
Men might spin and knit, and sew and cook, and 
rock the cradle for a hundred generations, and not 
be women. And woman will not become man by 
external occupations. God's colors do not wash out. 
Sex is dyed in the wool." 

Now, again, I ask, what will your choice be? 
Will you fit yourself for some useful employment in 
life, and thus be independent ; or will you be ease- 
lovers, compelled under all circumstances to rely 
upon other people, and, in consequence, the tool and 
servant of others? Which shall it be ? You ought 
to choose the former course. Assuming that you 
do, what will be your further choice ? You con- 



144 OUR GIRLS. 

elude, we will suppose, to follow some occupation, 
or, at least, to fit yourself to do so. Now, the 
question is, which, of the many open to you, will 
you adopt? 

Remember this, that any calling is honorable 
that is legitimate. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 

Nevertheless, some occupations are more suited 
than others to woman's tastes and capabilities. Some, 
too, as regards their effects upon both health and 
morals, are much safer than others ; while some, again, 
call for so much sympathy and tenderness, that, by 
right, they belong to womankind exclusively. 
Now, w T hat shall your choice be ? 

Whatever your regular calling, and even though 
you have none, do not forget, my young friends, 
that within the sphere of morals and religion, you 
all have a work to do. This work you are not 
left to choose. Your nature fits you for it, and the 
God who has made you what you are imperatively 
demands it at your hands. 

'Tis woman's to nourish affection's tree; 

'Tis hers to culture with patient toil 

Each heaven-born plant in the heart's deep soil. 

'Tis woman's to fashion the infant mind, 

To kindle its thoughts and its hopes unbind ; 



THEIR CHOICE. 145 

To guide its young wing in the earliest flight, 

And lure it to worlds of unsullied light ; 

To teach him to sing in his gladsome hours, 

Of a Savior's love, with an angel's powers. 

'T is woman's to bind up the broken heart, 

And soften the bleeding spirit's smart, 

"With the balm that in Gilead's garden grows, 

With the stream that from Calvary's fountain flows; 

And to light in this world of sin and pain, 

The lamp of love and of joy again. 

I should like now, if you will allow me, to make 
a few practical suggestions to these young ladies in 
regard to the choice of a husband. 

Most of them will undoubtedly have husbands, 
and they will be largely of their own choosing. 
Upon her conduct in this matter the girl's future 
happiness depends. When you marry, you will seal 
your destiny for this world, and, very probably, for 
the other, also ; and in the sealing of your own 
destiny by your matrimonial choice, you will neces- 
sarily, in almost every case, bring weal or woe to 
other hearts. What subject, therefore, is of more 
moment than this, and upon what topic is it more 
essential that these girls should receive proper in- 
struction from the minister of God! 

A good way to secure a good husband is to de- 
serve one. This may not be an infallible method, 
but it is successful often. Sensible young men do 
not go about blindfolded. They know that tinsel 



146 OUR GIRLS. 

is n't gold, and that sparkling eyes and sweet lips 
are not enough to keep house upon. They are 
looking for a helpmate; not a drag, nor' a doll. 
Make yourselves worthy of good husbands. Dean 
Swift says that the reason why many marriages are 
unhappy, is, that young ladies spend their time in 
making nets instead of in making cages. What he 
means is that they seem more anxious to catch a 
husband than to merit one. Ambitious to secure a 
good husband, it is but fair that you strive to de- 
serve such a boon ; otherwise you are trying to con- 
summate a dishonest bargain — trying to get more 
than you are prepared to give. 

If it be true that many a noble girl has mated 
herself to a worthless man, so, also, is it true that 
many a noble boy has found himself tied for life to 
a good-for-nothing woman. The latter event may 
not occur so frequently as the former, but it does 
occur, and it is always, no less than the former 
class of misfortunes, an event to be deeply deplored. 
I Ve known hundreds of women for whom my 
heart has bled, as I ? ve thought of their surround- 
ings at home, and not a few men have I known, 
for whom, on similar grounds, I have felt a like 
compassion. 

Here, again, these girls have their choice. By 



THEIR CHOICE. 147 

proper training they can fit themselves to be angels 
of blessedness in some dwelling, or by neglect they 
can prepare to make some home wretched, and 
possibly to drag some aspiring man into the depths 
of despondency. 

I would persuade you all to school yourselves 
to be good wives, if I could, even though I knew 
positively that some would be linked to worthless 
husbands. Where the man and woman are both 
bad, home is but a hell upon earth, and the poor 
children, if there be any, what can you expect 
them to be, but fiends in human shape? When, 
however, the wife and mother, by virtue of a ster- 
ling character and a Christian example, does what 
she can to neutralize the baneful influence exerted 
by a brutal husband and father, there is some peace, 
some joy, some hope in the household. It may 
be very dark, but you can no more have total 
darkness under such circumstances than you can 
have midnight shadow in nature while those glis- 
tening stars beam from the sky. 

So, let all these girls, who contemplate the wedded 
state, prepare themselves to adorn it, and to dis- 
charge aright its onerous responsibilities ; for in that 
case, should you draw a prize in this great lottery, 
your husband will be equally fortunate, and you 



148 OUR GIRLS. 

will both be happy together; while, should you not 
draw a prize, you will at least have the satisfaction of 
feeling that your misfortune was not deserved, and 
the privilege, moreover, of making one home bet- 
ter than it otherwise would be, and, possibly, too, 
of saving some man's children from walking in their 
father's footsteps to perdition. 

But besides making yourselves worthy of good 
husbands, there are other points for these young 
ladies to guard. 

Though I have said that it would be preferable 
for you to be the good wife of a bad husband, than 
to be bad like the man, yet, I pray God to spare 
you such a fate. Better the hardest lot of toil ; 
better work your fingers to the bone ; better pov- 
erty, better death, than to be tied to a brute ! A few 
times in my life have I performed the marriage cer- 
emony when I Ve wished in my soul that I was 
reading the burial service instead. Really, I knew 
I was reading the burial service — burying a foolish, 
unsuspecting girl in a union, which, I could not help 
feeling, would be to her a living supulcher ! 

Now, let these girls beware or they '11 be buried 
too. They '11 think they are going to their bridal, 
but it will prove to be their grave — not literally 
so, to be sure, but what is far worse, the grave of 



THEIR CHOICE. 149 

their happiness — the mournful supulcher of all their 
bright young hopes ! 

In this momentous matter of choosing a hus- 
band;, I '11 offer now a few suggestions to these 
young ladies. 

In the first place, I caution you against the folly 
of trying to catch a husband. You may succeed, 
if you try, but the probabilities are, that, in such a 
case, two persons will be caught. Young men who 
have proper views and worthy ambitions are nat- 
urally shy in regard to girls who seem very anxious 
to attract their attention. They prefer those who 
are modest and backward — who must be wooed be- 
fore they are won. If it ? s merely a husband you 
want, go ahead. The more forward you are, the 
quicker, probably, will you get matched. But if 
you 're looking for a man — one who will respect 
and cherish and honor you — better quit looking and 
let him look for you. 

I caution you, moreover, to not take up hastily 
with a young man of flashy appearance. Your 
companion should be neat, but he must not be loud. 
Very frequently a gaudy suit of clothes, adorned 
with pretentious jewelry, is a sign both of an empty 
pocket-book and an empty head. Sometimes, too, 
it means an unpaid tailor's bill. Flashy attire, 



150 OUR GIRLS. 

whether on man or woman, is always an indication 
of vulgar tastes, and frequently it indicates loose 
morals as well. The modern dude is the most un- 
promising material in the world out of which to 
construct a sensible husband, and I beg these young 
ladies to beware of him. 

Generally, too, it is a bad sign for a young man 
to be very free in making presents to a young lady, and 
in treating her to costly entertainments; for, in the 
first place, if he is working on an ordinary salary, 
he can not afford this, and she, by accepting such 
favors, puts a temptation to dishonesty in his way. 
Then, even though he can legitimately spare the 
money, how much more prudent and worthy he 
would show himself to be, did he save his earnings, 
instead of squandering them ! Few things are more 
important to worldly success than the habit of fru- 
gality, and unless this habit has its beginnings in 
youth there is little hope that it will ever be de- 
veloped. 

Beware, again, of the lazy young man. He '11 
have plenty of time to take you around before mar- 
riage, but after marriage you may have to repay 
him for these attentions by supporting him. 

I warn you particularly against the young man 
of bad habits. The man who uses profane language 



THEIR CHOICE. 151 

is no fit company for a pure-minded woman, either 
for life or temporarily. Profane lips are usually 
lewd lips — lips that delight in the salacious story and 
the obscene jest. 

Above all things, link not your fortunes to a 
tippler. Few women marry drunkards, and yet how 
many have drunken husbands! Ah, the reason is, 
they married tipplers. Neither thought, when that 
fine-looking young fellow swore to love and cherish 
his sweet-faced bride, that the former would become 
a sot and the latter a slave. Yet such was the se- 
quel; and the occasional glass did it. 

Some say, if a girl finds that the young man 
with whom she is keeping company, drinks, that 
she ought to plead with him and refuse to marry 
him until he takes the pledge. I say, let the girl 
break away from him entirely. No objection, of 
course, to her trying to make a total abstainer of 
him on general principles; but to sober him up, or 
to swear him off, merely to marry him, is a risky 
business, for how long is it in many such cases, as 
experience shows, ere the dog returns to his vomit 
and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in 
the mire! 

In preaching to young men, we cautioned them 
to beware of girls who disobeyed their mother, or 



152 OUR GIRLS. 

who, in any way, grieved deliberately a fond 
mother's heart. We give the same warning now 
to these young ladies. A boy who does not love 
his mother is not capable of really loving any 
woman. A boy who will revile his mother, or 
wrong her in any way, without the quickest and 
deepest repentance, will revile and wrong and mis- 
treat the fondest and truest wife that ever drew 
breath. 

Of course, in warning you against such charac- 
ters as these, we necessarily, at the same time, 
commend to you their opposites. 

And now, I ask, what will your choice be ? The 
flashy or the sedate — the spendthrift or the frugal — 
the lazy or the industrious — the one who loves and 
honors his parents or the one who wrongs and 
grieves them — the drinker or the confirmed ab- 
stainer — the young man of pure language and clean 
life, or the swearer and the libertine — which of 
these shall it be ? 

What I most desire to impress upon these young 
ladies is the transcendent importance of sterling 
Christian character in those who aspire to be their 
life partners. A young man not a Christian is an 
enemy to God, and as some one has well observed, 
" He who is an enemy to his Creator can not be a 



THEIR CHOICE. 153 

true friend to any of his creatures/' I do not say 
that a Christian profession is all you should con- 
sider. There are many thiugs to be weighed care- 
fully. But other qualifications being measurably 
equal, such as the sterling requisites of industry and 
capacity, the young man who is a Church member 
and a professing Christian should be given the pref- 
erence every time. The non-Christian may have 
the most money ; but religion, remember, is prefera- 
ble to thousands of gold and silver. The worldly 
young man may be better connected than the other; 
but what is social position if domestic bliss be want- 
ing? What is a fine mansion if it be but the tomb 
of a broken heart — what all the smiles of this de- 
ceitful world if conscience frown and the blessing 
of the Lord be withheld? 

My last question follows naturally — it is this: 
What will your choice be within the higher realm 
of the spiritual ? 

You must choose. God has set before you two 
ways, and it is for you to say in which of these you 
will walk. He has presented to you the possibility 
of two kinds of character, and has given you the 
alternative of two opposite destinies. One or other 
of these you must choose. You may be reluctant 
to admit that you could deliberately choose the evil 



154 OUR GIRLS. 

portion, but you certainly will do so if you fail to 
choose the good part. 

"Will you accept Christ?" said a Christian 
minister to a young lady. "Not now/' she said. 
" Then, I understand/' added the minister, " that 
you reject him." Ah, she had not thought of that. 
"Beject the blessed Savior," she exclaimed, as she 
burst into tears ; " I can not do it," and she took Him 
at once into her heart. O, that many of these young 
ladies might do likewise! 

Which shall it be ? 

You must choose, and you ought to choose 
without delay. If you ask why, I answer, because 
you owe to God, not simply the full-blown flower, 
but the opening blossom of your existence — not 
your mature womanhood alone, but that freshest 
and fairest period of life, stretching from the teens 
into the twenties, which we call girlhood. Besides, 
there is danger in delay — danger of death, for the 
blighting frosts of disease nip often the tender buds, 
and, as the thoughtful young prince reminded him- 
self, there are graves in the cemetery no longer than 
the shortest and the youngest in this audience. 

Moreover, there is an enemy abroad who is 
anxious to pre-empt you for himself. . The privilege 
he craves is that of sowing the first crop in your 



THEIR CHOICE. 155 

hearts. Accord him that and it may be, as in the 
case of the Abbot, who, when not allowed to buy a 
certain piece of land, rented it for just one crop, and 
then planted acorns, whose fruitage kept pace with 
the centuries! Ah, my young friends, just let the 
devil sow the first crop in your natures, and who can 
tell that the ground will ever receive any better 
seed — who can tell but that the harvest of that ear- 
liest sowing may be your sad portion in eternity. 

Which shall it be ? 

Why not Jesus ? Why not salvation ? Why not 
eternal glory ? Why not the good part, and why 
not now? You can give no reason sufficient to 
justify you in sin, while a thousand could be adduced 
for an opposite course. The argument in this mo- 
mentous case is all on one side, and it *s all on the 
preacher's side. Not a solitary reason for choosing 
the world — a thousand why you should choose Christ ! 

Which shall it be ? 

In Christ your womanly nature finds its Divine 
counterpart, and your womanly cravings meet in 
Him their full supply. Some one has written, "I 
marvel how a woman, with her need of love, with 
her sensitive, yearning, clasping nature, can look 
into the face of the Lord Jesus and not put her arms 
about his neck/' and, truly, this is a marvel. 



156 OUR GIRLS. 

Is it a worthy object of affection you are seek- 
ing? Here is the fairest among ten thousand and the 
altogether lovely. Is it a true friend for whom you 
are looking — one who will never betray, never 
leave and never repel your gushing devotion by 
chiding words or chilling looks? O let me intro- 
duce you, then, to Jesus — that dear friend who 
sticketh closer than either husband, father, or 
brother! 

Very properly every young lady wants to be as 
beautiful as possible ; and what is there in all this 
world that makes the face so radiant, the eyes so 
bright, the manners so pleasing, as the joy of God's 
salvation ? The highest and most enduring beauty, 
it has been said, is that of the mind. Of all the 
lovely characters I know, the most charming is the 
Christian girl. Radiant with the luster falling upon 
her from the Sun of righteousness, and fragrant 
from the sweet odors of the Rose of Sharon, such a 
character shows us, not simply how beautiful, but, 
as Wordsworth says, 

how Divine a thing 
A woman may be made. 

Naturally, too, your opening womanhood craves 
happiness. You crave it as the flowers crave the 
sunshine; you seek it as the vine feels about for 



THEIR CHOICE. 157 

something on which its soft tendrils may find sup- 
port. But how can any one be truly happy who is 
not at peace with God? How can any one have 
a light heart who has a guilty conscience? How 
is it possible for man or woman to walk blithely 
over the dangerous pathway of life unless there be 
within a sure hope of the life to come? 

Which will you choose ? 

I have spoken of woman's influence. " Your 
sex," it has been said, " places you at the head- 
waters of humanity, where a pebble may change 
the direction of a streamlet." I plead with you, 
therefore, not only for your own sakes, but for the 
sake of others. The mighty influence you wield 
will be good or bad according to the wisdom or 
unwisdom of your choice within this pregnant realm 
of moral forces. Which shall it be? Our influ- 
ence, too, survives the wreck of death. It was the 
mournful desire of a dying man that his influence 
might be gathered up and buried in the same grave 
with his worthless bones. But vain the wish, for 
the evil that we do lives after us, as, thank God, 
the good also does. 

Which shall it be in your case ? 

Doubtless you aspire to usefulness in life. 

There are few girls who do not form noble plans 

14 



158 OUR GIRLS. 

for the future. You would all, I feel sure, like to 
be somebody and to do something. Learn, then, 
the secret of such a life. The surest way to realize 
it, and the only way, is to fear God and keep his 
commandments. The young lady who takes Christ 
into her ambitions and labors becomes a personified 
benediction. Like the goddess of whom we read in 
heathen mythology, wherever she goes she carries 
sunshine and good cheer. Under her influence the 
barren places of sin bloom with virtue, and in the 
dreariest paths the blossoms of Christian hope 
spring up. 

Once more, which shall it be? You can make 
your life a blessing or you can make it a curse — 
which shall it be? One or the other it must be, 
and you must determine which. 

Suppose, too, as already suggested, death should 
come erelong? It will come — suppose it should 
come shortly? You are hoping for a long and 
bright career in life. Suppose it should be cut 
short? Suppose the end should come ere another 
year, or another month, has rolled by — what would 
that end be ? I have read of young ladies dying 
an awful death. Such was the departure of the girl 
whose mother had encouraged her in worldliness, 
and whose parting words accused that heart-broken 



THEIR CHOICE. 159 

parent of having sacrificed a daughter's soul at the 
shrine of frivolity ! 

Vastly different, however, is that of which a 
minister tells, which occurred in a far Western 
cabin. 

The mother was dead, and the loving father had 
taken his daughter out there for her health ; but 
the sequel showed that she had gone there for her 
translation. The minister found them surrounded 
by evidences of taste and even luxury. He asked 
the daughter if she knew her condition. " I know," 
said she, faintly, " that my Redeemer liveth." After 
a little She spoke again in the same soft, tremulous 
tones, " Father, I am cold ; lie down beside me ;" 
and the old man lay down by his dying child, and 
as she twined her emaciated arms about his neck, 
she murmured in a dreamy voice, "Dear father, 
dear father !" " My child," said the old man, 
" doth the flood seem deep to thee ?" " Nay, father, 
for my soul is strong." " See'st thou the other 
shore ?" " I see it, father, and its banks are green 
with immortal verdure." " Hearest thou the voices 
of its inhabitants ?" " I hear them, father, like the 
voices of angels falling from afar in the still and 
solemn night-time. Her voice, too, father." "Doth 
she speak to thee ?" " She speaketh in tones most 



160 OUR GIRLS. 

heavenly. " " Doth she smile ?" " O, an angePs 
smile ! But I am cold, cold, cold ! Father, there 's 
a mist in the room. You '11 be so lonely. Is this 
death, father?" "It is death, Mary." "Thank 
God !" she gasped ; and so she passed away. 

Beautiful, heavenly, glorious dying, that! 

To-day that girl is among the ransomed in the 
upper sanctuary, where, if their present choice and 
future conduct be right, these girls, with all the rest 
of us who are faithful, die we sooner or die we later, 
shall at last join her ; to stimulate to such a life and 
to prepare for such a death being our one object 
this morning in striving to fulfill PauPs inj unction 
to " Teach the young women." 



* — & 



VI. 



SoiaKg People: cat ^ome, 



* » 



(§0K THE NTS 



ENERAL rule for home life. — First institution framed by the 
Almighty for man's benefit. — The great lack of pagan 
and heathen nations. — France and England in contrast. — Chief 
defenses of the British Empire. — The American home. — Where 
the best friends are found. — Possibilities of happiness and 
usefulness presented in the home of one's youth. — The tender 
touch of a mother's hand. — Influence of the early home upon 
character and destiny. — Influence of young people in deter- 
mining what their early home shall be. — Advice to parents on 
the duty of making home pleasant. — " She always made home 
happy." — How the young sometimes cast shadows over the 
home. — A peep behind the scenes ; or how some young people 
appear in the home circle. — The chief cause of domestic un- 
happiness — Requisites to household bliss. — How young peo- 
ple may contribute to the attractiveness of home. — General 
rule for home amusements. — The need and blessedness of 
piety at home. — Why some young people are not at home. — 
The Church as a home. — Our final home in heaven. 



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VI. 



Youna People at Home. 



" Let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite 
their parents; for that is good, and acceptable before God." — 

i Tim. v, 4. 



ERE is an apostle's view of the main features 
o^P of the life of young people at home. It 




should be marked by piety, he tells us, or, as 

the original word is rendered in the margin, 

by kindness. It should also, he says, be distinguished 

pre-eminently by a tender regard for the rights and 

needs of parents. In a word, for this is clearly the 

teaching of the passage, considered as a whole, the 

life of young people at home should be fashioned 

according to the principles of the Christian religion, 

having in view, as its chief end, the approval and 

blessing of an all-seeing, all- wise, most merciful, and 

perfectly just God. 

15 165 



166 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

How sweet and blessed this word " Home I" 
Some one has well said that the three most precious 
words in our language are these — Mother, Home and 
Heaven. How closely, too, are these precious words 
related — for is it not the mother who makes the 
home? and is not heaven the final home of the 
faithful ? and is not home itself, in its best aspects, 
a heaven on earth? 

It has been aptly said, in allusion to the idea 
last suggested, that "to Adam paradise was home," 
and that " to the good among his descendants, home 
is paradise." The poet Bo wring says also on this 
point : 

A glance of heaven to see, 

To none on earth is given ; 
And yet a happy family 

Is but an earlier heaven. 

The family and the home were the first institu- 
tions framed by the Almighty for the benefit of man. 
They are of earlier origin than either the Church 
or the State. In fact, the home is what made these 
later -institutions possible, and is, to-day, moreover, 
their chief stay and bulwark. 

Happy the nation that can be properly called a 
nation of homes ! Travelers in the far Orient find 
that the great lack of those lands is the fireside circle. 



AT HOME. 167 

Missionaries tell us that the crying curse of hea- 
thenism is that it fails utterly to develop the home 
feeling. This, too, aside from its downright in- 
iquities, is the chief complaint we lodge against 
Mormonism, viz., that it eliminates home from the 
social system, or, if it does not entirely eliminate 
home, that it at least so mars and pollutes it as to 
utterly destroy its influence for good. 

We have a striking example of what a nation is 
likely to be, which possesses distinguished advan- 
tages in other respects, but is notorious for the ab- 
sence of this home idea from its social life, in the 
history and present condition of France. Long ago 
the first Napoleon, being asked, what was the great 
need of his country, replied, " Mothers," which was 
but another way of saying that her great need was 
homes. Domestic life in France is largely an out- 
door life. Hence it is artificial, and the lack of 
such restraints and pleasures as can only come from 
a sacred regard for marital rights and conjugal ties 
has caused the family life of France to be, also, 
shamefully corrupt. 

Contrast France with England in this respect. 
Justly celebrated is England for many things, and 
for nothing more than for her blazing hearth-stones, 
her family roof-trees — in a word, her homes, illus- 



168 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

trating so grandly, as they do, Charles Swain's 
thought, that: 

Home's not merely four square walls, 
Though with pictures hung and gilded; 

Home is where affection calls 
Filled with shrines the heart hath builded. 

Think of the merry homes of old England ; and 
who doubts that the pre-eminence of that country 
in this regard has had much to do with her pre-emi- 
nence over neighboring nations, and particularly over 
France, in other respects ? The Spartan, when asked 
where were the defenses of his city, pointed with 
pride to his own brawny arms, saying, " These are 
her defenses." Does any one ask, where are the 
chief defenses of that great empire on which the 
sun never sets, but whose head-quarters are on a strip 
of territory across the sea not much larger than 
our own State ? If so, we point them, not to her 
military forces, nor to her ships of war, but to the 
blessed influences which radiate through all sections 
of her national life from the glowing firesides and 
heaven-crowned homes for which she is famous. 

Happily, too, America, in all essential particu- 
lars, is ahead of England in these matters. A grand 
housekeeper is the old mother, but the daughter 
excels her. The American home is the English 



AT HOME. 169 

home relieved of its somber aspects, purged from 
its drinking customs, and brightened and improved 
by many touches of refinement and elegance — the 
English home, too, greatly multiplied, and shedding 
its Divine radiance, not upon the favored classes 
alone, but upon all classes indiscriminately. 

O, happy people that we are ! Blessed with such 
a wide domain, and favored with such general pros- 
perity, the lowliest amongst us may have a place 
we can call by the sacred name of home. A large 
proportion, indeed, may own the homes they live 
in ; while so generally are the twin blessings of ed- 
ucation and religion diffused, that every home which 
dots the surface of our broad land, whether it nestle 
in the crowded city or lift its incense to the sky 
from amid the virgin forest, may be simultaneously 
distinguished for intelligence, for good taste, for 
piety, and for domestic happiness. 

We are to discourse to-night, however, not upon 
homes in general, but of the home in its influence 
and claims upon young people. In other words, 
our purpose is to utter a few counsels as to how 
young people should conduct themselves at home ; 
noting, too, as we proceed, the beneficent effect 
which a good home must necessarily have upon the 
future lives of this class. 



170 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

We lay down, first, a few general propositions. 
Remember at the outset, my young friends, that, 
generally speaking, it is in the home of your youth 
that you will find the best friends this world can 
afford you. 

There are exceptions, but this is the rule. You 
will find friends in business circles. You will form 
friendships in society. Neighborhood courtesies will 
bring you friends, as, also, will your relation to the 
Church and your associations in the lodge-room 
and elsewhere. As a general thing, you will find 
no scarcity of people about you who will be willing 
to avow themselves your friends. Some of these, 
too, will stand the test most nobly. They will be 
true in adversity, and you '11 feel, as Shakespeare 
says, like grappling them to your soul with hooks 
of steel. You will not want for friends, for true 
friends, outside your own family circle, if you 
prove yourself worthy of such attachments. 

Nevertheless, your best friends, after all, will be 
found in your present home. The silver-tongued 
Robertson said on this subject, " Home is the one 
place in all this world where hearts are sure of 
each other;" and how true is the observation! 
That brother of yours will always stand by you. 
He may seem hard at times, if you trouble him 



AT HOME. 171 

much ; but when the pinch conies, you '11 find that 
ties of blood bind very tightly. Is it not significant 
that Infinite Wisdom should have seized upon a 
brother's devotion as the nearest possible approxi- 
mation to his own tender love, saying, as His in- 
spired Word does, there is a Friend that sticketh 
closer even than a brother? Ah, as a gentleman 
remarked to me the other day, that means a great 
deal to some of us ! So with that sister of yours. 
Few amongst women will show so much charity for 
you as she, and few, if any, will minister to you 
more steadfastly in your times of need. 

And what shall be said of father and mother? 
The mother's tender devotion is proverbial every- 
where, and we never tire of extolling it. Your 
mother, my young friends, is a living sacrifice for 
you. She will never give you up, and even now, in 
her daily attentions, she grudges neither toil nor pain 
for your welfare. Bishop Thomson said, what you 
will no doubt feel thousands of times as you journey 
through life, viz., that "there is no velvet so soft 
as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, 
no path so flowery as that . imprinted with her 
footsteps. " 

Nor let us forget the father, the head of our 
family group — the one whose brain has planned 



172 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

and whose hands have toiled for us so cheerfully; 
whose strong arms are the family support, and 
whose efforts have made our home possible to us ; 
for is it not a fact that, while the mother is the 
light and comfort of the home, the father is worthy 
of equal honor as being the creator and supporter 
of it ? O, a wonderful friend will that father be 
to you ! — so strong, so true, so charitable, so ready ! 
He it is who, in your school-days, will face a 
frowning preceptor or an indignant faculty, to beg 
you back into favor when your carelessness or 
perversity has brought you under discipline. I re- 
member how my own father used to do this — God 
bless him for it ! He it is, your father, who will 
plead your cause when things go wrong at your 
place of employment, and when, possibly, but for 
his pleadings, a promising position would be for- 
feited ; and afterwards, if he can, that father of 
yours will start you in business for yourselves ; not 
failing, either, to still help you when you need his 
aid, and often, in fact, helping you to his own 
detriment. 

We repeat, therefore, that it is in the home of 
their youth that these young people may expect to 
find the very best friends this world can afford 
them ! 



AT HOME. 173 

Another proposition is, that you will find in 
your present home wonderful possibilities of happi- 
ness and usefulness. 

Upon this point young people, as a rule, make 
a serious mistake. Regarding youth only as a time 
of preparation for what is beyond, and the early 
home as merely a place of brief sojourn prior to 
embarking upon the serious stages of life's jour- 
ney — entertaining these views, they naturally have 
their existence almost wholly in the future, looking 
upon their present home surroundings as things 
which must be endured simply, not thinking for a 
moment that they contain, like the germs of beau- 
tiful flowers, the grandest possibilities of enjoyment 
and helpfulness. Such is the delusion of all young 
people, with occasional exceptions — a delusion from 
which I would fain to-night awaken some of them. 

I want you to remember, young friends, that 
your present home is not merely a Pisgah-top from 
which Canaan may be surveyed, but that it is a part 
of Canaan, a place flowing with milk and honey, a 
place where the richest fruits grow and the rarest 
pleasures may be found — not merely a school of 
training for future duties, though it is that, but a 
sphere in which present duties press — a place where 
we can be helpful, where we can lighten the bur- 



174 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

dens of those about us, where kind words may often 
stay the flowing tears, and where loving hands may 
find constant occupation in work which shall at 
once bless the doer and bring joy to those for whom 
it is done. That 's what home is, and such a place 
I pray God it may prove to be in the case of these 
young people ! 

Still another proposition with reference to your 
early home is, that you will never find another 
home just like it. 

Never but one father, though others may be 
called by the name, and may measurably fill the 
place. Never but one mother, certainly. No one 
to love you as she loves. No one to pity as she 
can. No one to forgive like she. No kiss just like 
hers. No touch upon the aching brow like the soft 
touch of a mother's hand. No wonder that dying 
man, who had not seen his mother for years, when 
he felt her hand laid over his closed and sunken 
eyes, ere ever a word was spoken, recognized her 
by the touch, and faintly gasped, " My mother!" 
No wonder ; for there is something in a mother's 
touch that has not its parallel, and can never 
have its imitation, in all the realm of human 
tenderness ! 

Only one mother, boys, and she 's the central 






AT HOME. 175 

sun of the home system in which you now revolve. 
Therefore, I say again, only one home such as you 
have now. You '11 have your own home after 
awhile, probably, and it may be much grander than 
your present one — of finer architectural propor- 
tions, and of richer furnishing within. Neverthe- 
less, the new home will lack something. The 
atmosphere will be different from that of the old; 
and mark this, my young friends, wherever you 
travel, and whatever heights of success you climb, 
you will never forget this home of your youth. 
Indeed, the farther you get away from it, the more 
you will think of it, and the more of brightness 
and sweetness you will see in it; nor, I repeat, 
will you ever find another home just like it. 

Our next proposition follows in natural sequence. 
It is this — that your present home life will have 
much to do in shaping your character, in molding 
your disposition, and in fixing your destiny. 

I do not hold this to be an inflexible rule, for 
some, whose home surroundings have been the very 
worst, have, nevertheless, grown up into goodness 
and moral strength, and, after the noblest of earthly 
careers, have won a lofty niche at last in the King- 
dom of Heaven. None of these general rules ap- 
ply in every case. They all, however, hold good 



176 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

usually, and few, if any of them, with less variation 
than the one just announced. 

These early homes of ours we may compare to 
conservatories in which plants are nurtured, these 
plants being full and strong and fragrant, when 
brought out at length to perform their part in the 
great world — to beautify our households or to adorn 
our gardens — according to the atmosphere in which 
they have bloomed, and the skill and care bestowed 
upon them during their development. Or we may 
liken these homes to nurseries in which little twigs 
are cultured into trees, these trees being crooked or 
straight, flourishing or backward, full of promise 
or containing awful capabilities of disappointment, 
in the exact proportion in which they are guarded 
from injury, and supplied with such soil and air as 
are good for them, while their early growth is 
proceeding. 

Such are our early homes — such the influence 
they are likely to have upon our future lives. So 
true to the life, indeed, are these figures, and so 
general the rule of causes and effects which they 
illustrate, that in at least nine cases out of ten, 
wherever you see a person of lovely parts, of sterling 
character, and of happy life, you may make up your 
minds to a certainty that that person can be traced 



AT HOME. 177 

back to some good home — some home that had sun- 
shine and piety in it — the flower being all right 
because the atmosphere of the conservatory was all 
right — the tree being straight and stately because it 
was not bent, nor was otherwise injured, when a twig ; 
or, in other words, the men and women being what 
they should be because their early home was what 
it should be. 

Bemember, too, my young friends, that your 
homes will be, very largely, what you help to make 
them. 

We are not unaware of the potential influence 
of parents in determining the character of the 
homes from which their children shall go out. We 
put parental influence first in this matter; and we 
appeal to parents to recognize their responsibility 
along these lines, and to endeavor, in the fear of 
God, to meet and fulfill it. Make the home pleas- 
ant for your children. Within proper limits let 
the children be allowed perfect liberty in the home 
circle. Have no room that is too good for them ; 
invite no company from which they must be ex- 
cluded. Let the hearthstone blaze with light and 
warmth; let the walls be hung with beautiful pic- 
tures ; let the carpet be cheerful to the eye and soft 
to the steps, and the furniture the best you can 



178 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

afford — all for the children — not for show, but for 
use by these precious young people, who ought to 
be to you the most important people in the world. 
In a word, do all you can to make your own 
home — their home — the freest, brightest, safest, 
happiest place they know. It will pay to do this, 
fellow parents, and it is our duty to do it. 

How blessed the epitaph in a graveyard some- 
where, inscribed by a husband after sixty years of 
wedded life — placed by affection's gentle hand over 
the final resting-place of wife and mother — the 
epitaph which says, "She always made home 
happy!" God help the parents before me to strive 
in every possible way and by all conceivable means 
to deserve a similar tribute! The desire to make 
home happy should be our chief ambition in life, 
for what is there better that we can do for our 
children — what that will have a better effect on 
their future lives, or that will cause them to so 
surely keep our graves green and our memories 
fragrant when we are gone ! 

But if the parents have much to do in making 
the home happy, so also have the younger members 
of the family. And this brings me to a point in 
the treatment of our theme at which we must ad- 
vance from general propositions to particular direc- 



AT HOME. 179 

tions; for we must consider now, relative to this 
subject of Young People at Home, what are some 
of the special duties of young people in that sphere. 

I charge you, first, my young friends, to avoid 
casting any shadow over your home. Be careful to 
never disgrace it. Let it be a sacred asylum in 
your thought, and be you a special guardian over its 
sanctity. 

The great bane of domestic felicity is sin — 
chiefly, too, sin in the young people. How many 
homes in this city are shrouded in gloom to-night, not 
because a child is dead, but, what is far worse, be- 
cause a living child is dead to virtue ! O, boys, 
do n't bring down that father's gray hairs with sor- 
row to the grave ! O, girls, do n't break that 
mother's heart ! You surely do not intend to do 
these things; you will do them, though, unless you 
shun evil company and keep better hours. 

The young man who tipples flatters himself that 
his mother has n't found it out yet. The truth is, 
however, that she does know it, only she 's trying 
to not believe it. Yes, and when the sad fact first 
dawned upon her, it would have been almost a 
kindness in comparison had you sent a dagger into 
her breast. 

The boy who keeps late hours, creeps into the 



180 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

house so stealthily, and gets into bed with so little 
noise, that he feels sure he did n't awaken the old 
people, as he calls them. No, you did n't, my boy; 
they were awake — your mother, certainly; and 
could you but have seen her tears and heard her 
stifled sobs as she listened and listened for your 
step, while the hours of the night dragged wearily 
into the early morn, the old family clock ticking 
its warnings and ringing out its alarms ever and 
anon — you 'd never stay out late again. 

Once more I charge you, my young friends, to 
avoid casting any shadow over your home, and in 
order to this, to eschew evil habits, evil company, 
and evil hours. 

I beg you, also, to not be cross and fault-finding 
at home. 

Do you see that young man out in society? His 
dress is faultless; his manners are perfection. How 
kindly the tones of his voice. See how polite he is 
to those young ladies. Possibly he never met them 
before. He 's certainly under no special obligation 
to them. Yet, how attentive ; how considerate ; 
how kind and courteous he is ! Really, you 'd think 
that young fellow was a gentleman, to look at him 
this evening ; but he is n't, at all — he 's a brute in 
disguise. In his own home he 's as cross as a bear. 



AT HOME. 181 

He hardly ever speaks a kind word to his sister, 
and, God forgive him, he shows an ugly disposition 
sometimes toward his mother! 

Look, too, at that young lady. She 's at an 
evening party. How gracious ! How supple and 
perfect the bow with which she greets new acquaint- 
ances ! How she smiles ! How soft and tender her 
glance ! How amiable her expression ! No wonder 
the boys go into raptures over her. Poor, deluded 
fellows — they think she ; s an angel. But, O, I 
wish they could see her when she has on her home 
manners — wish they could see those soft eyes when 
they ; re darting daggers at the unfortunate people 
who have to live with her ; those amiable lips when 
they ? re pouting, because a poor, exhausted mother 
wants her to help a little with the house work, 
and that tongue, which speaks so sweetly to-night, 
O, I wish they could hear it once when she lets 
loose in one of those spells of bad temper which 
mark and mar her home life ! 

I beg you, young friends, to be kind at home. 
Make the same effort to be agreeable at home that 
you do in other places. We ought, in fact, to make 
a greater effort to be agreeable there. We owe it 
to our own family circle to do so. If we owe kind- 
ness to any body on earth, we owe it, surely, to those 

16 



182 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

in our own households, who, necessarily, from their 
close intimacy with us, are constantly laying us 
under obligation by favors shown. 

In this matter of being kind and agreeable at 
home, we all, doubtless, could improve a little, if 
we would. God help us to do it! 

It is the testimony of one who traveled a good 
deal, and was a close observer, that, having lived 
in twenty different families within the space of nine 
years, he found only three out of the twenty to be 
really happy families. He declares, also, that the 
trouble in the other seventeen was, not so much 
lack of affection, as lack of care to manifest it. 

God help us to not only love the members ot 
our own households, but to show that we love them. 

"The road to happiness," says one "lies over 
small stepping stones. Slight circumstances are the 
stumbling-blocks of families. A cold, unkind word 
checks and withers the blossom of the dearest love, 
as the most delicate rings of the vine are troubled 
by the faintest breeze." Or, as another has ex- 
pressed the same thought in verse, 

All the peace which springs, 

From the large aggregate of little things — 

On these small cares of daughter, wife, or friend, 

The almost sacred joys of home depend. 



AT HOME. 183 

So they do, and God help you and me to not 
forget it! 

Another admonition for these young people is 
this : I would have them contribute all they can to 
the attractiveness of home. This you can do by such 
accomplishments as music, painting, fancy work, 
and so forth. 

O, for more strains of sweet melody in our 
homes! The brightest families I know are those 
in which the young people love to gather together, 
and call their friends in, to have a good time in 
singing. Happy the parents who have such chil- 
dren! Happy the children who have such tastes! 

Then, reading is an excellent method of bright- 
ening the fire-side hours, especially reading aloud — 
one reading for the entertainment of the others, fhe 
young reading to the old, and sometimes the old to 
the young. Not only does this promote intelligence, 
but it develops the feeling of companionship between 
parents and children; besides, as I say, filling with 
brightness hours which otherwise might be dull and 
wearisome. 

Then there are no end of wholesome and cheer- 
ful amusements in which young people can indulge 
at home. We can not to-night enter into particu- 
lars. As to what amusements are proper in the 



184 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

home circle, a good general rule is to do nothing at 
home that you could not do with safety and pro- 
priety elsewhere. 

We can not sanction private theatricals, because 
these beget a fondness for the public play-house. 
We can not indorse parlor dances, because those 
who indulge there, harmlessly, trip, afterwards, all too 
easily, into the ball-room, a place most harmful to 
both health and morals. Nor, for the same reason, 
can we sanction the use of cards at home, for how 
often has the quiet game in one's own family paved 
the way to the gambling hell, and prepared young 
men for a career of infamy ! We repeat, therefore, 
that a good rule, with reference to the amusements 
and diversions of the home circle, is to do nothing 
there that you could not do with equal propriety 
and with equal safety elsewhere. 

Above all, my young friends, let me admonish 
you, as my text does, to show piety at home. The 
Christian religion does so brighten and sweeten 
home-life ! The fear of the Lord is such an excel- 
lent thing for the young ! One's own early home, 
with father and mother to help us, as they're 
nearly always anxious to do, is such a favorable 
place for us to begin to serve God ! O, try it- — 
try it, my young friends. 



AT HOME. 185 

Some think they must wait till they get settled 
in life before starting in the service of God. But, 
by the time you are settled in life, you may be 
settled in habits of sin, or may find yourself in cir- 
cumstances wholly unfavorable to such a step. O, 
this is the time to commence ! Try it — try it and 
see how easy it will be — try it and see how much 
blessedness it will bring to you. Try it — try it, for 
be assured, 

'T will save you from ten thousand snares 
To mind religion young ; 

and be assured, furthermore, that the very best, the 
very grandest thing young people can do at home is to 
consecrate themselves to God there, and to thus 
make the first home they knew on earth a veritable 
starting-point for their final home in the better 
world on high. 

Young people at home ! We speak to some 
young people who are not at home — to some who 
have no home. They had once — father and mother 
were there, and every thing was so happy ! O, 
what a picture of brightness appears as memory 
conjures up that home of your youth ! Quickly, 
however, the scene changes and the shadows fall. 
There J s a wasted form on the bed — it may be father, 
it may be mother. There 's a tearful leave-taking ! 



186 YOUNG PEOPLE. . 

There are wet eyes and broken hearts. There is the 
request, coming from pallid lips," Meet me in heaven," 
and the broken response, " By the grace of God we 
will." Then, there ? s a funeral, with its last look and sad 
ceremonies, and then — what then — O, it 's so awful 
to think of — then, mother or father gone, or possibly 
both — then, in the gloom that ensues, the sacred 
shelter of home fades from about us. Yes, it *s too 
true; some of you are not at home, because you 
have no home. May a merciful Lord greatly pity 
and specially care for such as these, and- may we 
also, who are more fortunate, care for them ! 

Others, however, are away from home, not be- 
cause their home is broken up, but because they 
have left it. Some left home because they were 
weary of its restraints; some because they had 
to in order to make a living; others because their 
parents have thought absence from home for a 
time might be helpful in spurring to activity, or in 
developing independence of character. In this city 
there are large numbers at this season who have 
left their homes to attend college amongst us. They 
belong to both sexes, and a grander lot of young 
people one seldom meets. Has it never occurred to 
you, fellow-citizens, that these boys and girls are, in 
a peculiar sense, our wards, that those who fondly 



AT HOME. 187 

love them have sent them here, and that both they 
and God expect us to take care of them ? 

My special plea upon this point is, that these 
young people being necessarily absent from their 
own homes, our homes should be open to them ; 
and to the young people themselves, I say this, 
Do n't crowd, if you can help it, into cheap boarding 
places, where the only object is to just feed and 
sleep you at the lowest cost, but get into the shelter 
of some good family, and into the safe current of 
wholesome family life. In a word, look out for 
homes — you can find them if you want to ; and 
especially do I admonish you to seek a home as 
speedily as possible in some warm-bosomed Church, 
where, whilst you are separated from your own 
parents, the fathers and mothers in Israel may care 
for you. 

Young people at home ! In one sense none of 
us are really at home yet. With great rapidity, 
however, we are all hastening there, and not far 
will you young people travel on life's pathway 
until you '11 feel the need of home, and will, per- 
chance, long to be there, saying, as the poet has said 
so touchingly and beautifully : 

We would go home 
From sorrow's bitter tears and sin's dark stain, 



188 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

From lonely, aching hearts and longings vain, 
From scenes with death and desolation rife, 
From all the weariness of mortal life, 
We would go home. 

Ah, young as you are, you know what home I 
speak of, and probably, already, have begun to ap- 
preciate and look forward to it. 

O, blessed home in the skies ! No shadows there, 
but all brightness, for God himself shall be the light 
of it ! No need of amusements, but there '11 be 
plenty of pleasure, for we shall see Jesus and be 
like Him ! No night vigils of heavy-hearted parents, 
for there '11 be no night ! No late hours of wayward 
children, for there '11 be no hours ! No sundering 
of tender ties ! No breaking up of happy associa- 
tions ! No beds of suffering — no chambers of ill- 
ness — no death scenes — no empty chairs — no painful 
memories ! No weeds of sorrow, but white robes of 
gladness ! No tears, for God will dry them, and 
banish, as well, all trace of them, softly and surely 
as the Autumn sun these days kisses up the dew- 
drops ! No taking of the hand in sad farewell ! No 
partings ! The universal salutation of that home 
will be "good morning;" never "good evening/' 
nor " good-bye." 

O, blessed home in the skies! God grant we 
may all get there at last ! 



AT HOME. 189 

A dying soldier was asked for a last message to 
his father. He was silent a moment, a smile play- 
ing over his face, and then he said : " Tell him I 
have gone home." a Any message for your wife?" 
"Tell her I have gone home." "Is there nothing 
more you want to say; no other message I can bear 
for you?" "No, that's enough. They will all 
understand it — tell them I 've gone home." 

O, bless God, that we understand it — bless God 
that these young people understand it — that even 
these know, that, after all, the best home is, not the 
earthly, but the heavenly — not the home conse- 
crated by a mother's devotion, nor the home hal- 
lowed by a wife's love, nor the home brightened 
and made sacred by the sweet presence and pure 
affection of little children, but that blessed home on 
high, consecrated, hallowed, brightened, and ren- 
dered eternal by the presence and undying love of 
that glorious being, who is better to us than brother, 
better to us than father, better to us than mother — 
the Son of God, the Savior of the world ! O, young 
people, that is the best home, and God grant you 
may all so live as to be worthy of admission there ! 
17 



^ =± —& 



VII. 



S©^mg People: at ^efio©!, 



- »■ ~» 



(gONTE NTS. 



PLEASURES and delights of school life. — Freedom from 
care. — Compensations of those who are self-supporting at 
school. — The tender regard which age shows for youth, and 
what young people owe to age in return. — Pleasures of learn- 
ing. — School companions. — "Let me go to her; she was my 
school friend." — A typical American girl in the White House. — 
Ambitions incidental to school life. — Youthful dreaming. — 
Great men in embryo.- — "Who can tell what I may be?" — The 
wisdom of trying to be happy. - Duties of school life. — Why all 
who can should take a college course. — The only sure way to 
get on in life. — Advantages of the elective system in school 
studies. — Locke on "The business of an education." — Educa- 
tion life-long.— Good story by Mr. Spurgeon. — Duties of pupils 
to their teachers, to their parents, and to one another. — Exalted 
vocation of the teacher. — Why parents deserve gratitude. — The 
boy who pities the ignorance of his father. — An interesting cat- 
alogue of " Do n'ts." — The last analysis of wisdom. — The final 
commencement exercises. — The bell of duty always ringing. 



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llllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllilillillllllliilli:;lli[:iiiiiiiiii!liiiil!l'll!iilllli!l!iy 



VII. 

Younn People at 009 



ool 



" Wisdom is the principal thing ; therefore get wisdom ; and 
with all thy getting get understandig."— Proverbs iv, 7. 



^HESE words of one of the wisest of men ex- 
press, in brief form, the advice which we 
offer to-night to the young people connected 
with our schools and colleges. The Com- 
mencements are over and Vacation has begun. In 
a different sense from that in which the phrase was 
originally used by Lord Brougham, " The school- 
master is abroad," and the school-mistress as well. 
They are seeking well-earned and much-needed 
rest. Some of the scholars have gone, too, but many 
remain, and are taking part with us in these ser- 
vices. To all we extend greeting and well wishes, 
and to those present we have some words of en- 
couragement and counsel to offer, the latter, as we 

have remarked, being tersely summarized by Solo- 

193 



194 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

mon, when he says: " Wisdom is the principal 
thing ; therefore get wisdom ; and with all thy get- 
ting get understanding." 

Understanding means, not simply knowledge, 
but knowledge mastered and assimilated, and wis- 
dom is commonly denned to be knowledge applied. 

My first anxiety is that these young people shall 
be wise to understand and to appreciate properly 
the pleasures and delights of school-life. 

Too many look upon their school duties as a 
drudgery, and upon their school days as being alto- 
gether irksome and unlovely. But how grossly 
mistaken is that view! These, my young friends, 
are your days of freedom; they constitute, really, 
the brightest and the happiest period of your lives. 
The spring-time of your existence is this — the time 
of opening flowers and budding trees, of caroling 
birds and bright sunshine, of balmy breezes, and 
golden promise. 

How free are you at this period from care in 
regard to your subsistence ! Nothing to do but get 
your lessons, behave yourselves, and have a good 
time. Whatever planning is necessary, others do 
for you. You are living upon the labor and sac- 
rifice of those who love you. As free as birds 
you are, and you ought to be as happy. No shad- 



AT SCHOOL. 195 

ows from the past; no troubles worth speaking of 
in the present; no fear for the future. Such is the 
life of the average pupil in our schools and colleges. 

And what if some have to work, as some do, in 
vacation and after school hours, to earn money for 
books, or to pay tuition fees, or to add a little to 
the scant supplies at home ? Look at the compen- 
sations flowing from this necessity, in the added 
vigor which exercise produces, in the sense of inde- 
pendence begotten by self-support, and in the in- 
creased respect commanded by a brave resistance 
of difficulties, to say nothing of the benefit of such 
a discipline in the years to come ! 

It seems to me, too, that one of the special de- 
lights of our school-days arises from the interest 
taken in us by those older and more experienced. 

What a happy characteristic of our nature that 
as we climb we do not disdain those below us on 
the ladder ; and that while pushing on in life's 
journey we are impelled so often to look back and 
give encouragement to those who entered the race 
at a later period ! Ah, there is more bearing of one 
another's burdens in this world than we are some- 
times willing to admit, and the grandest illustration 
of this principle is in the universal regard which 
age shows for youth. 



196 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

In my own boyhood I often wondered why 
people took such an interest in me — older people. 
I could understand why my own kindred should do 
so ; but the kindly regard shown by strangers, and 
called forth, as I could plainly see, solely by my 
youth, was a constant amazement to my opening 
mind. Nor was it any more surprising than de- 
lightful. And this, I believe, is the experience of 
young people generally. 

Allow me to say, too, that I understand now, 
from my own feelings, all about it. Not old yet, 
and still, as I get up in the scale, I find myself 
looking down, and, as I progress in the race, I can 
not help casting sympathetic glances backward. 
There is an attraction for me in young people, sim- 
ply because they are young people. Involuntarily, 
almost, I find myself speaking kindly to them, and 
by hand laid affectionately on the head, if not in 
spoken words, bidding them God-speed in their 
life-work ! Doubtless, too, many before me have 
similar feelings. 

Some one has said that the world worships at 
the cradle and bows down before the sovereign 
baby. With scarcely less truth could it be said that 
all in middle life, and beyond, worship at the 
shrine of youth, raising their hats and bowing their 



AT SCHOOL. 197 

knees in loving regard for the boys and girls in 
our colleges and schools. 

My young friends, you are walking in an atmo- 
sphere of admiration. Looks of kindness and 
words of good cheer fall like rays of sunlight on 
your pathway. The world is interested in you, and 
all true-hearted men and women are your friends. 
Thousands of faces smile, and thousands of strong 
hands are stretched forth to help. How happy 
should you be, therefore ; and I will add, too, how 
the regard shown for you by age and experience 
should cause you, in return, to respect the gray 
head, and to be willing, whilst you receive kind- 
ness from those older than yourselves, to also heed 
their counsels and to learn wisdom from them. 

Such are some of the delights incidental to the 
period of school life, which is universally the pe- 
riod of youth. Look, now, at a few which spring 
directly from the occupations and associations of 
such a life. 

What pleasure there is in learning ! Think of 
a man born blind opening his eyes gradually to the 
beauties and glories of this wonderful universe ! 
Think of the pleasures of such a revelation ! And 
is it not much the same as the mind opens by slow 
degrees, under school tuition, to the wonders of the 



198 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

moral and intellectual world? What pleasure even 
a little child has in feeling that the alphabet has 
been mastered ! The warrior who conquers a 
kingdom has no keener delight. So, on through 
school life, as one after another of the rudiments 
are acquired, how the youthful mind thrills with 
ecstasy at these conquests ! Then, as geography 
unfolds its wonders, and as history gives up its se- 
crets, or as mathematics yield their clear demonstra- 
tions, or the languages, mastered, tell their tales of 
heroism and splendor — as this process goes for- 
ward, the delights of school life. are, of course, in- 
tensified a thousand-fold. 

Lord Bacon holds that the pleasures of the 
intellect are the greatest of which man is capable. 
We can scarcely subscribe to this, for to us it 
seems that the pleasures of the affections must take 
the first rank. Certainly, though, intellectual de- 
lights are very great ; nor is there any period when, 
in the nature of things, they can possibly be so 
keen and so ecstatic as when the charm of novelty 
inheres in them, and when, one by one, they are 
unfolded in panoramic view to the virgin mind 
of youth. 

It is said of a great mathematician that after con- 
quering some difficult problem, such rapture would 



AT SCHOOL. 199 

take possession of his mind, that he was unfitted 
for a time for the ordinary pursuits of his profes- 
sion, and seemed to be dwelling in a very elysium 
of delight. Not all have such ecstatic experiences 
as this, but all do experience pleasure as the scope 
of their knowledge widens. It has often seemed to 
me that the delight which comes from an increase 
of knowledge will be one of the highest raptures 
heaven can yield us. Be this as it may, it is cer- 
tain that this experience is one of the highest de- 
lights of school life. 

And still another of the pleasures of school life 
is in the companionships to which it leads. 

Always pleasant are these companionships while 
they last, and they often last till death. Those 
college chums will never forget each other. Those 
school-girls, who link arms lovingly as they walk 
out together at recess, will never forget these early 
friendships, and there will always be a glamour of 
romance attaching to them. You will make other 
friends and form other attachments, but none will 
seem to you just like these. You may be separated 
by long distance; but still the fondness will re- 
main, and a chance word may at any time fill your 
hearts with the most tender memories. You may 
not meet for long years, but when you do meet the 



200 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

kiss of greeting will be exchanged, and you '11 both 
become young again, as you smile or weep to- 
gether over what used to be. Some day word may 
come to you that a certain person is sick or in 
trouble, and you '11 say at once, " O, let me ^o to 
her; she was my school friend!" Or, possibly, 
you '11 pick up the paper some day, and find a 
familiar name in the obituary column. " Yes," 
you '11 say, as the tears start, " we went to school 
together ; I hope she 's in heaven, and God grant I 
may meet her there !" 

O, these friendships of our school days, how they 
brighten life, how they kindle sympathy, how 
they soften the feelings, how they smooth the path- 
way, and how they glorify and strengthen the 
character ? 

Our Nation has celebrated a wedding recently. 
We rejoice in it for many reasons. A typical 
American girl, with no more educational advantages 
than many of you possess, steps, shortly after grad- 
uation, into the White House ! She is in one sense 
greatly exalted, but she does not forget her former 
associates. She occupies a conspicuous place in the 
eyes of the great world, but she still thinks with 
tenderness of her school life, and still cherishes 
her school friends. In proof of this, witness the 



AT SCHOOL. 201 

letter written to one of these immediately after her 
return from Deer Park, in which she speaks of the 
reminiscences of her school days as the most pleas- 
ant she indulges, and of the congratulations of a 
certain school acquaintance as being the most touch- 
ing occurrence of the first week of her wedded life! 
A letter, that, honoring at once to the woman who 
penned it, and to the institutions, the schools in 
particular, which produced such a woman. 

Rot to tarry, however, we mention finally, among 
the delights of school life, the ambitions we cher- 
ish and the hopes we usually indulge at this period. 
Youth is naturally hopeful, and under the stimulus 
of the school — the knowledge gained, the rivalries 
created, and the noble purposes called into life — 
hope and ambition unite in most minds in such a 
degree, that the pupil, alike in his nighty dreams 
and in his day-light reveries, lives almost entirely 
in the future; happily, too, always in circumstances 
of greatness and honor. 

O, these pictures that we drew at school — these 
air castles that were built by our early fancies, how 
different in many cases from what the sober reality 
has turned out to be ! And yet, who of us, had we 
our youth to live over, would not wish to build 
just as grandly and to aim just as high, even though 



202 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

we had the full assurance of enjoying these plans 
only in anticipation? A poet has written grandly 
of " The Pleasures of Hope/' and the pleasures of 
hope are pre-eminently the pleasures of college and 
school life. 

Dream on, young people! In this sense you 
ought to be dreamers at this period of life, and we 
love to think, as we look at you, that you are such. 

That young man, whom we see daily trudging 
along with his school-books under his arm, looks 
like an ordinary youth, and they tell us that his 
name is John Smith, but it ? s a mistake. Could 
you read his thoughts you would find him to be a 
Bonaparte commanding great armies, or a Lincoln 
giving liberty to the enslaved, or a Shakespeare 
inditing immortal verse, or a Gladstone molding 
nations by his statesmanship, or a Spurgeon or Tal- 
mage, perchance, swaying the masses by his sacred 
eloquence. Dream on, young man ! True, you may 
never reach these lofty heights, but you certainly 
stand a better chance of reaching them if you dream 
of them, than if your mind were absorbed with the 
commonplaces of life; and, in any case, you have 
the pleasure which such dreams afford. 

Dream, on, therefore. It is natural ; it is profit- 
able ; it is delightful. 



AT SCHOOL. 203 

Forcibly and beautifully and truthfully, has 
Tupper expressed the ambitions and hopes of youth. 
He makes the young heart tell its own story. 

Who can guess what I may be ? 

Who can tell my fortune to me ? 

For bravest and brightest that ever was sung 

May be — and shall be — the lot of the young ! 

Hope, with her prizes and victories won, 
Shines in the blaze of my morning sun ; 
Conquering Hope, with golden ray, 
Blessing my landscape far away. 

My heart, my heart, within me swells, 
Panting and stirring its hundred wells; 
For youth is a noble seed that springs 
Into the flower of heroes and kings. 

Rich in the present, though poor in the past, 
I yearn for the future, vague and vast ; 
And, lo, what treasures of golden things 
Giant Futurity sheds from his wings ! 

Away with your counsels, and hinder me not, 
On, on, let me pass to my brilliant lot ; 
Young and strong, and sanguine and free, 
Who can tell what I may be? 

These, my young friends, are some of the de- 
lights of school life — your freedom from care; the 
regard shown you by those older and more experi- 
enced ; the pleasures sipped at fountains of knowl- 
edge ; the sweet and tender friendships formed ; the 
lofty ambitions developed, and the bright hopes 
called into being — these are some of the delights 



204 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

of school life, and I pray God that the young 
people I am specially addressing to-night may 
enjoy every one of these delights, and all other 
pleasures that are proper, to the fullest extent 
possible. 

This is the part of wisdom. It is wise to be as 
happy as we can — wise to look at the bright side — 
wise to gather up the flowers along life's pathway — 
wise to be contented with our lot; and "wisdom/' 
my text says, " is the principal thing ; therefore, 
get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get under- 
standing." 

Now, however, let us consider the duties of 
school life. 

Let these young people understand that the 
more they know the better they will be fitted for 
the active career that is before them. Let them 
remember, too, that this is the pouring-in period. 
With most of them it is now or never — get an 
education now, or get along to the end of life with- 
out one. Therefore we say to them, Be not weary 
in well-doing. Attend school just as long as you 
can, not to be burdensome to those who are sup- 
porting you. If possible, finish your course. Do 
this at great sacrifice even. 

We also advise all who possibly can to take a 



■■ 



AT SCHOOL. 205 

college course. The discipline of college life is 
very salutary. There is something, too, in the 
prestige which a college gives; but, more than all, 
should we covet the knowledge that is acquired 
there. We are aware that in some cases those who 
have not enjoyed these advantages outstrip those 
who have ; but the former, certainly, have not so 
good a chance at the start. 

It is stated upon good authority that one-fourth 
of the members of the National Congress from the 
beginning, have been graduates of colleges — a fact, 
which, taking the ratio of population and graduates, 
shows, as this statistician tells, that in the contest 
for the highest positions in this country, colleges 
have given their graduates a proportion of more 
than thirty chances to one. It is significant, too, — 
perhaps, indeed, prophetic of the high rank to be 
finally taken by this Nation in scholastic matters — 
that all but ten of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence were college men. 

Understand me. I do not say that it is not 

possible for those lacking a collegiate training to 

climb to high positions in the world. I could not say 

that; for many have done so already, and many more, 

no doubt, will do it in the future. Our contention 

is this, simply — that a college course, properly used 

18 



206 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

and improved, gives a man a splendid start in 
life— a better chance than the same man could 
possibly have if lacking such a preparation. Hence, 
I say again, be not weary in getting knowledge; 
attend school as long as possible, and let all who 
can take a college course. 

But merely to attend school is not enough; 
you must improve the advantages afforded. You 
must apply yourselves to your studies. You must 
be diligent. It is a trite saying that there is no 
royal road to learning ; nor is there. Some one has 
remarked, "A boy may be born with a silver spoon 
in his mouth, but you never heard of one being 
born with a Webster's Dictionary between his lips." 
Another observes that " Not even the grace of God 
will make a man a good scholar," and I ? m sure it 
will not. 

There is only one way to learn, and that is by 
study. It ? s just the same in the school life as in 
the active business life, or the profession adopted — 
nothing tells like hard digging. Some, to be sure, 
are naturally more apt to learn than others; but 
common observation clearly attests that those who 
most frequently take the prizes, whether in school 
or out of school, are not the persons commonly 
reputed to be brilliant, but the determined plod- 



AT SCHOOL. 207 

ders — those who have learned and demonstrated 
the royal value of hard work. 

Our judgment is, too, that early education should 
be in the direction of future usefulness, and should 
have in view, as far as possible, the calling we are 
likely to follow. 

The college course should be largely elective. 
One can not become thorough in every thing in 
three or four years. Better, therefore, neglect some 
studies, and give more attention to others. In this 
regard it would be well, it seems to me, if our pub- 
lic school system could be modified. Too much is 
attempted, especially in the higher grades, the con- 
sequence being, too often, that those who finally 
graduate, while they possess many accomplishments 
and know something about many things, are not so 
thorough as they should be in branches that are of 
practical value. How many, for instance, have a 
smattering of Latin who habitually murder the 
King's English, and how many can solve a prob- 
lem in Euclid who are unable to spell correctly 
some of the most simple words in the language! 
This is not said to the disparagement of either 
Latin or mathematics, as parts of a finished educa- 
tion, our point being, merely, that where the time 
is limited, it would be better, were it possible, to 



208 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

devote the whole of it to the thorough mastery of 
such knowledge as is likely to be serviceable in the 
pursuits of business or in the amenities of society. 

An ancient sage, being asked what he thought 
most proper for boys to learn, answered, "What 
they ought to do when they become men." It were 
well, too, that we remember the words of the phi- 
losopher Locke, who says : " The business of an 
education is not to perfect a learner in all, or any 
of the sciences, but to give his mind that freedom, 
that disposition, and those habits, that may enable 
him to obtain any part of knowledge he shall apply 
himself to, or stand in need of, in the future course 
of his life." 

Wise and truthful words, certainly; and they 
not only suggest that our education should have in 
view our probable calling in life, but they distinctly 
imply that our education must be life-long. 

We speak to-night to some who, in the technical 
sense, have "finished their education." You have 
graduated. The school and the college have closed 
upon you for ever. Some, perhaps, are so vain and 
foolish as to think they have now done learning. 
As a matter of fact, however, they have only laid 
the foundation — have only mastered the alphabet. 

Our school knowledge, I compare to the catalogue 



AT SCHOOL. 209 

of a great picture gallery, its chief uses being, first, 
to remind us what we ought to know, and then to 
direct us where to find these things. Happy the 
graduate, therefore, who feels like the young man 
Mr. Spurgeon tells about. When this young man 
had been to college a year, his father asked him, 
"What do you know? Do you know more than 
when you began ? " " O, yes," said he ; " of course 
I do." After the second year, the father asked the 
same question. "What do you know? Do you 
know more than when you began?" "No," said 
he, " I do n't ; I know a great deal less." " Good," 
said the father ; " I see you are getting on." Then 
he went the third year, and was asked the same 
question : " What do you know now ? " said the old 
man. "Know?" said the boy; "I don't think I 
know any thing." 

Happy the graduates, I say, who feel like that. 
Really, to be sure, they do know a great deal; but 
the proper feeling, on completing a school or col- 
lege course, is that we have only learned enough to 
show us our ignorance, and to indicate how much 
more there is to follow — have only obtained the 
catalogue, as it were, the vast art gallery where the 
treasures are kept, and the beauties and glories are 
on exhibition, still waiting to be explored; for as 



210 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

our text says, " Wisdom is the principal thing," 
and wisdom is knowledge, not merely possessed as 
an intellectual attainment, but knowledge applied 
to useful ends, and chiefly applied in acquiring and 
using additional knowledge. 

Regarding the duties which we owe, during 
school life, to teachers, to parents and to one 
another, we can speak but briefly. This point, 
however, is exceedingly important, for it lifts the 
question we are considering to a higher plane. We 
have been, chiefly, up to this time, in the intellect- 
ual realm; now we come into the realm of ethics. 
Hitherto, wisdom has meant to us the acquisition 
and application of head knowledge ; now it means 
moral principles as applied to the conduct. 

You ask, first, " What are our duties to those 
who instruct us ?" and I reply, You must treat them 
with respect, both for their own and for their 
work's sake. 

The vocation of a teacher is one of the very 
highest. In its influence it is second only to that 
of the Christian minister. I lift my hat to teachers. 
They fill a noble sphere; they are a broad-souled, 
pure-minded, noble class of people, considered en 
masse. They are worthy of universal respect, and 
most assuredly should they be held in respect by 



AT SCHOOL. 211 

those whom they are instructing. Not only do 
they deserve this, but such a feeling between 
scholar and teacher is necessary to give proper 
weight and permanence to the lessons imparted ; 
and, of course, where respect exists, the scholar 
will show it by giving attention to the teacher, by 
being considerate, sympathetic, obedient, and by 
manifesting an anxiety to excel. 

To their parents, scholars owe, first, the supreme 
duty of gratitude. Eemember whose forethought 
it was that planned for your schooling, and whose 
money it is that provides for the needs of your 
school life. Think how hard that father works, 
and how cheerfully, to relieve you from the neces- 
sity of working. Think of the stitching and patch- 
ing and stinting to which that mother resorts, to 
make your appearance neat and your school-days 
happy ! Think of these things, and be grateful. 
Show gratitude by kind looks, by gracious words, and 
by a general disposition to be obliging and dutiful. 

Above all, do not try to show your parents how 
much smarter you are than they, nor how much 
more you think you know than you think they 
know. God pity the boy who pities the ignorance 
of his father ! or the girl who thinks she ? s humil- 
iated because her precious old mother can no longer 



212 . YOUNG PEOPLE. 

repeat the multiplication -table, or has forgotten the 
little grammar she once learned ! But instead of 
treating them thus, let scholars and students honor 
their parents, love them, esteem them, and act 
always as if they owed their parents a debt, the 
half of which could not be paid, though they 
should lay the wealth of Croesus at their feet, or 
should give up, for their sakes, every thing they 
hold dear in life. 

To your schoolmates be honest, tender, and 
true. Do n't envy those who get ahead of you, 
and do not look down upon those who fall be- 
hind. You will have your special friends, but 
treat all courteously. Be especially kind to the 
weak, the poor, the afflicted. To sum up our ob- 
servations under this head, I give you this list 
of " Do n ? ts," taken from a recent issue of the New 
York Christian Advocate: 

Do n't. 

Don't snub a boy because he wears shabby clothes. 
When Edison, the inventor of the telephone, first entered 
Boston, he wore a pair of yellow linen breeches in the depth 
of Winter. 

Do n't snub a boy because his home is plain and unpre- 
tending. Abraham Lincoln's early home was a log cabin. 

Do n't snub a boy because of the ignorance of his par- 
ents. Shakespeare, the world's poet, was the son of a man 
who was unable to write his own name. 



AT SCHOOL. 213 

Don't snub a boy because he chooses a humble trade, 
The author of "The Pilgrim's Progress" was a tinker. 

Do n't snub a boy because of physical disability. Milton 
was blind. 

Don't snub a boy because of dullness in his lessons. 
Hogarth, the celebrated painter and engraver, was a stupid 
boy at his books. 

Do n't snub a boy because he stutters. Demosthenes, 
the greatest orator of Greece, overcame a harsh and stam- 
mering voice. 

Don't snub any one. Not alone because, some day, they 
may far outstrip you in the race of life, but because it is 
neither kind nor right nor Christian. 

Now, iii hastening to a close, consider wisdom 
in its last and truest analysis. And what is it? 

The beginning of wisdom, says Solomon, is the 
fear of God. How important that your minds be 
furnished with intellectual knowledge ! But how 
much more important that your souls be indoc- 
trinated in Divine Truth ! How necessary that you 
fulfill aright the duties you owe to teachers, to par- 
ents, and to your school-mates ! But how infinitely 
more essential, that, while you attend to these minor 
duties, you do not neglect the higher claims of the 
Author and Preserver of your being ! Wisdom is 
the principal thing, says our text, and that means, 
in its highest significance, that religion is the prin- 
cipal thing ; therefore, get religion, and live con- 
stantly in the enjoyment and practice thereof. 

19 



214 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

You have once more passed the scrutiny of the 
school examiner ; but O, how do your lives appear 
under the searching glance of the Judge of the 
whole earth ? Some of you stand high in your 
school studies ; but how about your knowledge of 
Christ? how about your proficiency in goodness? 
how about your progress in grace ? 

Kemernber, my young friends, that, as an emi- 
nent man has well and truthfully said, " He is the 
best grammarian who has learned to speak the truth 
from his heart ; he the best astronomer who has his 
conversation in heaven ; he the best musician who 
has learned to sing the praises of his God ; he the 
most skilled in arithmetic who so numbers his days 
as to apply his heart unto wisdom." 

Some of you have gone out into the great world. 
The lessons are finished; the work is done; the 
reward is realized ; the honors are gained ! So 
far, so good. After awhile, my friends, you will 
enter another world. We anticipate, in thought, 
the Commencement exercises. There will be kindly 
eyes to watch you, but your eyes will give no love- 
glances in return ; flowers, but you will be blind to 
their beauty and unmoved by their fragrance ; a 
white garment, perchance, but it will be a shroud, 
instead of a graduating dress ! A literal Com- 



AT SCHOOL. 215 

menceraent will that be, and one of stupendous im- 
port — the beginning of a destiny that shall never 
end; the attainment of a degree, for good or ill, 
which will never be laid by. 

O, for the white robes of the ransomed ! O, for 
eternal crowns of victory ! O, for the applaudits 
of angels ! O, for the Divine " Well Done !" These 
are what we wish you all on the other side, and 
they are the things, thank God, which all may have. 

But you must get ready for them. You must 
prepare in the school of Christ. You must begin 
to prepare now. You must be faithful to the end. 

Those still young may think that it will be time 
enough to prepare themselves for eternity when the 
lessons of the earthly school are finished. But, He 
says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." And 
what if the school life here should terminate ab- 
ruptly ? What if death should intervene ? Are not 
our' hearts still tender from the experience we have 
had of the possibility of such an occurrence? Is 
there not a flower-decked grave in yonder ceme- 
tery — the flowers happily symbolizing the beauty 
and sweetness of the life cut off — out of which 
comes the solemn admonition to all young people, 
and particularly to all in school, "Be ye also 
ready ?" 



216 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

I charge you, my young friends, to heed that 
warning. I beg you to heed it. By voices plead- 
ing from the sky ; by every thing that is precious 
in life ; by every thing that is solemn in death ; by 
every thing that is grand and glorious in eternity, 
I beg you all, to-night, since wisdom is the princi- 
pal thing, to get wisdom, and with all your getting, 
to get understanding. 

Finally, I say to you in the language a dis- 
tinguished educator addressed to his students last 
week: "The school is out. The bell is silent. 
Yet school is not out. The bell of duty rings us 
all to our human tasks. Some day the great vaca- 
tion will begin, and we will go home. May we be 
worthy of the Heavenly diploma! God be with 
you ! " 



■ * — &- 



VIII. 



^®umg People; <at UJ©rB, 



-fr- -*• 



(90NTE NTS 



i|7 E N ERAL rule and special lessons in regard to our life work. — 
Y Seeking an easy time in life. — An important law of nature. — 
The hard work^of trying to live without work. — A novel plan 
for stimulating to activity. — A sponge, or a spring, which ? — 
Importance of acquiring habits of industry in youth. — Helping 
mother. — The piano and the cook stove in contrast. — Tribute to 
the self-supporting college boy. — The greatest need of youth. — 
Self-denial and hard labor as factors in preparing for a career 
of usefulness. — Bonaparte at school. — The great men of Scrip- 
ture. — Toil not ignoble. — The kind of men promoted by Provi- 
dence to posts of honor and responsibility. — Christ as a 
Worker. — The true secret of success in life. — Choosing a voca- 
tion. — Callings which should be avoided. — The call to the min- 
istry. — Caution against two extremes. — Millionaires and their 
miseries. — Rewards of tireless diligence. — Cautions against 
doing business solely on faith, and other follies. — Choosing a 
partner. — How to find true rest. — Young people as workers in 
moral reforms. — A boat ride and its lessons. — Immortality of 
good deeds. 



VIII. 

Youna People at Work. 



" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ; 
for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, 
in the grave, whither thou goest." — Ecclesiastes ix, 10. 

EZHE great general duty enjoined in this text is 
that of whole-souled, unintermitting and be- 
@jt9 neficent activity. The special suggestions are 

Y these — that we are to first find out the depart- 
ments of activity best suited to our talents and 
tastes; that, then, we are to apply ourselves, cheer- 
fully and diligently, to the cultivation of these 
fields of effort; and that, finally, as an incentive to 
a proper choice of occupations and to an intelli- 
gent and tireless prosecution of our life work, we 
are to live and labor in the constant anticipation of 
death, remembering that death is sure to come ; 
that it may come suddenly and soon; that at the 
longest it can not be far off, and that when it does 

come it will end for ever our probationary period, 

219 



220 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

landing us in the grave, where, as the text says, 
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor 
wisdom. 

Not that the grave ends our existence. The 
idea is, simply, that it ends our earthly existence 
and closes up the book of our earthly opportunities, 
and that, therefore, we should do our utmost, ere we 
penetrate its solemn confines, to make our influence 
felt amongst men, and to lay up treasure for our 
eternal enrichment in the presence of God in 
heaven. 

Such is the great general truth, and such are the 
special lessons, clearly enforced by this text. God 
help us to take heed thereto ! 

These suggestions are of great moment to all, 
but especially so, it seems to me, to the youug. 
This is to them the time of choice. How important 
that they be admonished to choose wisely. The 
period this when their habits are formiug. How 
necessary that they be urged to cultivate habits of 
activity and of useful endeavor. How salutary also 
to the youthful mind this thought of death ! Just 
at the beginning of the race, how fitting that their 
thoughts should be directed to the goal at the other 
end ! With almost the entire complement of life's 
privileges before them, what more proper, or neces- 



AT WORK. 221 

sary, than that they be instructed kindly as to the 
use they should make of this heritage, and admon- 
ished lovingly how fast these golden opportunities 
will slip away from them — how soon they must ex- 
change the armor and weapons of conflict for the 
quiet coffin and the solemn shroud, and must quit 
these garish scenes of activity and join the innumer- 
able caravan, which, as Bryant says, " moves to the 
pale realms of shade." 

With special emphasis, then, we say to the young 
people present, Whatsoever your hands, or brains, 
or eyes, or hearts find you to clo, do it ; do it with 
your might ; do it quickly while the day lasts ; do 
it faithfully, as in the fear of God. 

To be practical, let me admonish you first to start 
out in life with the determination to be industrious 
workers. The ambition of many young people is to 
have an easy time in the world. Heaven pity such as 
these! O, there is so much to do — there are so 
many chances to be helpful and useful, and it's so 
noble, moreover, to want to be helpful and useful, 
that the idler on life's stage becomes, really, by 
contrast, a contemptible being. How foolish he is, 
too. He wants ease, and how hard he works to get 
it, and how seldom, if ever, does he gain what he 
seeks ! As a matter of fact, one who makes an easy 



222 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

life his sole ambition, never realizes what he seeks, 
for, transgressing one of the laws of God, how is it 
possible for his experience to be any exception to 
the rule that "the way of the transgressor is hard?" 

John Ruskin observes that the law of nature is 
that a certain quantity of work is necessary to pro- 
duce a certain quantity of good of any kind. If 
you want knowledge, he says, you must toil for it; 
if you want food, you must toil for it ; if you want 
pleasure, you must toil for that. 

So it is, my young friends. You must be workers. 
You may try to dodge this necessity, but if you do, 
you may rest assured that you ? 11 find it harder work to 
try to live without working than to adopt activity 
as your normal condition in life. You must be 
workers ; and the more you endeavor to shirk hon- 
orable labor, the more will you fulfill the descrip- 
tion given by Thompson of the occupants of his 
" Castle of Indolence," of whom he says : 

Their only labor was to kill the time, 
And labor dire it was, and weary woe. 

You must be workers ; the only question is 
whether you will work like machines, or like intel- 
ligent, high-minded humans. 

All enlightened nations reprobate idleness ; many 
nations which are otherwise not enlightened, do this. 



AT WORK. 223 

One place I've read of, where, if a man won't work 
from choice, they put him in a well where he has 
to work industriously a number of hours a day in 
baling out the water to keep himself from drowning. 
Not a bad plan ; it certainly proved successful in 
most cases, and though at first it may seem a little 
cruel, yet, really, how far, if at all, does it exceed 
the strong statement of the Apostle Paul that if a 
man will not work, neither should he be allowed 
to eat? 

You must be workers. It is a law of your 
nature that you be so. It is a requirement of your 
earthly condition that you be workers. It is a 
necessity to your happiness that you work, that you 
work industriously, and that you work from choice, 
not compulsion. 

At the opening of your career, therefore, I beg 
you to put yourselves right in this matter. Form 
the purpose, and let it be registered in heaven, that 
no one shall ever accuse you of laziness, but that 
your reputation shall be that of a willing toiler; 
that you '11 not be a sponge on society, to absorb 
the product of others, but that you '11 be a spring, 
rather, giving to others; that your abode shall be, 
not in the " Castle of Indolence," but in the 
workshop of honorable effort ; and that you '11 do 



224 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

your utmost to realize the truth of the poet's 
words, that, 

The heart of the toiler has throbbings that stir not the bosom 

of kings; 
He the true ruler and conqueror, he the true king of his race, 
Who nerveth his arm for life's combat, and looks the strong 

world in the face. 

If, however, your life is to be one of work, be 
assured, my young friends, that your youth must be 
seasoned with toil. 

Youth is the time when habits are formed. Be 
sure that you acquire, in this formative period, the 
all-important habit of industry ; otherwise, like an 
improperly broken horse, you ? 11 always be deficient 
in some of the qualities essential to usefulness — 
balky, or lazy, or clumsy, or something. Exceed- 
ingly wise was the prophet when he said, " It is 
good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth," 
for the fact is, that unless we begin to bear the yoke 
of labor then, it never fits us properly, and there is 
an awful danger, in that case, that we shall be 
shirks and ease-seekers to the end. 

We do not mean by this that it is necessary to 
embark at a very early period in the employment 
which is to constitute our life-work. Far from this, 
our thought is, that youth, whenever possible, should 



AT WORK. 225 

be wholly spent in preparing for that occupation. 
We would have you go to school as long as possible. 
We want the young men to tarry in the preparatory 
stages and employments of their career, not only 
till their beards grow, but until, in fulfillment of 
the ideal of the ancients, Old Father Time shall 
have pulled as many threads as possible out of the 
veil which clouds their understandings ; and the 
young women, whose work in life is, not less, but, 
if any thing, more important than that of their 
brothers, these we would have tarry in the Jericho 
of preparation fully as long. We would not have 
you hurry into business nor into the profession you 
are to follow; but we would have you show all 
possible haste in making workers of yourselves. We 
want you, whilst schooling in knowledge, to school 
yourselves in activity, and amid other acquirements, 
to acquire, above all things, an honest love for useful 
labor. Upon this point we have the greatest solici- 
tude, for it is now or never with you ; learn to love 
work now or you will never love it and never care 
to do it. 

An accomplished writer says truthfully on this 
point : " A girl that is never allowed to sew, all of 
whose clothes are made for her, and put on her till 
she is fifteen or eighteen years of age, is spoiled ;" 



226 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

and the fundamental idea in this observation is no 
more true of girls than boys. 

Our last subject was " Young People at Home." 
Let me now emphasize the importance of young 
people working at home. Let the girl help mother 
there in the practical affairs of the household, aud thus 
fit herself, in the only way possible, and at the only time 
when it can be done properly, to take such duties upon 
her own shoulders. 'T is a great accomplishment to 
play well on the piano. Would that all girls who 
have the chance might learn to do this ! But, as 
between the two, if only one were practicable, how 
much better that a girl know how to manipulate a 
cooking stove, or make a dress ! Better for her, 
because work in the kitchen schools her in an ac- 
complishment which is, not merely ornamental, but 
useful and necessary, and better for the man who 
shall afterwards become her husband, because music, 
with all its charms, is powerless to soothe either the 
savage or the civilized breast when the digestion is 
spoiled by bad cooking, or when the clothing is 
untidy for need of some woman's hand to put a few 
stitches in it. 

And if the girls should help the mothers, the 
school and college boys should, for the same reasons, 
and with equal cheerfulness, help the fathers. 



AT WORK. 227 

That father of yours is carrying heavy burdens; 
give him a lift, young man. Help a little after 
school hours. Try to earn your salt, if no more. 
Or, if there's nothing to clo at home, find something 
outside. If you fail in this, your school life, instead 
of being a blessing, may prove to be a curse, for while 
you are acquiring book knowledge, you may also be 
learning habits of idleness and self-indulgence. 

To be sure, our school studies are work of a 
certain kind ; but we need other work than that, if 
our characters are to be properly developed — work 
in occupations which shall school us in the virtue 
of manly independence and bring us a present recom- 
pense, thus teaching us, at once, the value of money, 
and the only royal road of honorably acquiring it. 

Happy for these reasons, the young man who has 
to make his own support during his college life ! 
You young fellows who have every thing found you 
often pity these boys ; but I beg you, do n't do 
it. Spare your compassion for yourselves in after 
years,, when these young men, trained to exertion 
and independence by the necessities of their college 
life, shall have distanced you, as some of them, no 
doubt, will, in competition for the prizes and honors 
held in reservation by a discriminating world for 
those who know how to work hard. 



228 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

O, for more self- denial, more moral hardihood, 
more willingness on the part of onr young people 
to make sacrifices of present comfort for the sake of 
the future ! This is the great need of times like 
these, and here, unquestionably, is the true secret 
of success in life ! 

When Napoleon the first, at the age of fifteen, 
was in the Military School at Paris, he complained 
to the superintendents of the school about its ar- 
rangements. And what, think you, were the nature 
of his complaints ? Why, singular to say, his ob- 
jection was, that the fare was too luxurious, his 
request being, that, instead of two courses a day, he 
and his brother soldiers should have ammunition 
bread and soldiers' rations, and that they should be 
compelled to mend and clean their own stockings 
and shoes ! 

Ah, there was the great General in embryo, the 
man whom no difficulty could abash, because he had 
learned in youth how to conquer difficulties; the 
man whose very presence controlled his country- 
men, because they could tell, from his quiet look 
and perfect composure, that he had learned 
thoroughly how to control himself. 

The same lesson is taught repeatedly by the 
great characters of Scripture — by Moses, and Elijah, 



AT WORK. 229 

and John the Baptist, who were prepared for lead- 
ership in great moral struggles by long discipline 
in the hard life of the wilderness ; by David, whose 
courage as a commander of great armies had its 
origin and early development in the encounters he 
had with wild beasts when a shepherd-boy ; by our 
Lord himself, who sympathizes so fully with the 
world's toilers, because he was himself a toiler; 
whose bosom has become a safe and tender resting- 
place for all sorrowing ones, because in its own pul- 
sations it has sounded the depths of all human woe ; 
and who rises to the sublime height of being a 
Savior for others because he saved not himself. 
The lesson of all these great characters — O, that 
our young people would learn it ! — being this, that 
the life of toil must have its beginnings in toil ; 
that the powerful career must be forged out in early 
experiences of self-denial; that those who would be 
pre-eminently useful must acquire the habit of 
working diligently, must not be afraid of putting 
themselves to trouble, and must school themselves 
to hard work and sacrifices early in life. 

Some of you may think toil ignoble ; but the 
Almighty evidently holds it to be both necessary 
and honorable ; for would he, otherwise, have cre- 
ated us with the power to work, and have placed 

20 



230 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

us in a world in which work is indispensable to 
healthful life, and where every thing about us is 
working, from the great sun in the heavens to the 
smallest flower that beautifies the earth? Is not 
the idle man out of harmony with the whole uni- 
verse of God, and is not such a man rebuked by 
every voice and every animate form about him? 
Even the smallest insects are a reproach to such a 
person ; for did not Solomon say, " Go to the 
ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, and be 
wise ?" 

Is it not deeply significant that Almighty God 
should have called into his own service men whom 
he found faithfully doing their part in the secular 
avocations of life — Saul, to be king of Israel, when 
engaged in so menial a duty as that of seeking his 
father's stray stock; David, to supplant Saul, from 
quiet work in guarding the sheep-fold; Elisha, to 
be the servant and successor of Elijah, from follow- 
ing the plow ; Joseph of Bethlehem, to stand to the 
Son of God in the relation of an earthly parent, 
from the carpenter's bench ; Luke, to be an evan- 
gelist, from tender ministry in the ranks of the 
medical profession ; Matthew, to be an apostle, from 
the tax-gatherer's office; and Peter and James and 
John to be, of all the apostles, our Savior's bosom 



AT WORK. 231 

friends, from quiet devotion to the lowly pursuit 
of fishermen ? 

Is it not deeply significant that Almighty God 
should have sought for special duty in higher walks 
men who were thus busily engaged in discharging 
the ordinary duties of life ? Could any thing set 
forth in clearer light the lofty estimate he puts on 
the world's toilers, or more distinctly suggest that 
the path of promotion lies along the lines of activ- 
ity and is most surely found by those who, as our 
text says, do with their might whatever work falls 
to them — those who seek to realize the poet's 
thought when he says: 

Work for the good that is nighest, 

Dream not of greatness afar ; 
That glory is ever the highest, 

Which shines upon men as they are ! 

Of the fact of our Savior's personal perform- 
ance of secular toil we have already spoken. True, 
we do not possess positive evidence on this point, but 
all the presumptions favor the idea, and the Chris- 
tian world generally accepts it. Thus is the crown- 
ing dignity placed upon the brow of labor. Even, 
however, if this were not so, even though Christ had 
not been personally one of the world's workers, we 
should still have ample assurance, both of his high 



232 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

regard for this class, and of his opinion as to how 
most surely we may win a great success in life ; for 
what could be more conclusive upon these points 
than his own example in washing the feet of his 
disciples, especially pointed, as it was, with the ob- 
servation, " He that would be greatest among you, 
let him be your servant ?" 

Ah, my young friends, there ? s the secret of true 
success in life, viz., in serving — not in shirking 
work, but in doing it ; not in being carried through 
the world on flowery beds of ease, but in working 
your own passage through hardships and difficulties; 
and I admonish you again that the time to acquire 
industrious, habits and to school yourself into an 
honest love of toil is now, in the days of your youth. 

But from these general observations we proceed 
now to a few important particulars. 

I beg you, in the first place, to be careful in 
your choice of a vocation. 

Next to cultivating habits of industry, this is, 
from a secular point of view, the most important 
matter you have to determine. First get the ma- 
chine to going properly, and then be sure that you 
apply it to suitable work. You could n't reap a 
harvest-field with a sewing-machine, and you 'd 
have hard work trying to patch a garment with a 



AT WORK. 233 

Champion Keaper. So with these human machines 
of ours. Some of us are adapted to one pursuit, 
and some to another. There 's a variety of work to 
be done, and happily there are a variety of differ- 
ently constituted people to do it. But O, the waste 
that is caused by men and women missing their 
proper callings, and how many fail of the final 
goal of success simply because, though they have 
both industry and good principles, they lack the 
essential quality of adaptation ! 

Be careful, I beg you, in deciding what your 
life-work shall be, and let parents and friends assist 
you in this grave matter. Be, too, not only care- 
ful, but prayerful. Seek guidance from above ; nor 
stop at that, but while you pray to God, keep your 
eyes open. Pray and watch. Watch your devel- 
oping tastes and powers. Watch for openings ; 
watch for providential indications. Consider well 
the associations that are likely to surround you. 

To go into some callings is almost equivalent to 
going into hell. That 's strong language, but it 's 
Gospel truth. Do you not know some vocations — 
and I do not mean the liquor business only — which 
present so many temptations, and throw one into 
such bad company, that those following them hardly 
ever have any Church affiliations, and, oftener than 



234 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

not, are destitute of moral principle as well? I 
want you to reflect upon this. Do n't let your only 
aim be to make money, but in choosing a business 
or profession, consider what will be your surround- 
ings in it, socially and morally, and ask yourself, 
above all, whether or not you can pursue it devo- 
tedly without placing your soul in peril. 

Listen, also, as you wait at the threshold of your 
active career, for the inward voice of the Spirit of 
God. The Lord of Harvest may want some of you. 
He may want some of these young men to stand in 
the pulpit, and some of you young women to go as 
missionaries to the heathen. You may be thinking 
of the law, and God may say, " Come and proclaim 
my law." You may be working on mowers and 
reapers in the shops, and the voice of Christ may 
say, " Come, and I '11 use you to mow down in- 
iquity. Come, and I '11 make you yourself a reaper 
of souls in the world's moral harvest-field." You 
may be thinking of matrimony, some of you young 
ladies — may be resting in the conviction that, ere- 
long, you '11 be somebody's bride, and find your 
life-work in caring for some man's household. All 
at once, however, in the stillness of the night, or in 
the ecstasy following upon some simple service for 
the Master, a voice from heaven may say, " Wait 



AT WORK. 235 

awhile — come and work for me ; come and be my 
bride, and let me send you out; nay — let me ac- 
company you;" for that's what he does; " come and 
be my bride, and let me accompany you to some 
field of missionary effort in the South, or in the 
West, or across the sea." 

O, blessed service — how we should run to engage 
in it! Listen, young man, listen, young woman — 
listen for the voice of God calling you to forego 
secular employment, to relinquish secular prospects, 
and to consecrate yourselves to the Christian min- 
istry. 

My prayer is that many of you may be thus 
called, and that many may hear the call and obey ! 

Having chosen a calling, your next concern 
should be to follow it from worthy motives and 
with proper ambitions. 

Let me caution you against two extremes — first, 
against being too indifferent as to how you get on 
in the world. Such a feeling as this has no coun- 
tenance anywhere in Scripture, and it is especially 
reprobated in our text. Whatever we do we are to do 
with our might, and, we may add, that whatever is 
worth doing, is worth doing with our might. Be- 
ware, my young friend, of being too easily satisfied 
with your lot. Whatever your avocation, strive to 



236 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

excel in it. Be ambitious; be energetic. Be above 
discouragement. If at first you do n't succeed, try 
again. Benjamin Franklin says, "He that hath a 
trade hath an estate/' Let these young people 
remember this, and whatever their calling, let them 
try to make an estate out of it. 

While, however, I warn you against indifference 
to your progress in life, I also warn you, with equal 
earnestness, against an over-weening anxiety to be 
very prosperous. Aim high, but not too high. 
Above all, do n't make haste to be rich, nor gauge 
your prosperity solely by the money test. Suppose 
you should amass an immense fortune! How few 
who do this ever enjoy what they gather! In most 
cases the very labor of getting it has so dwarfed 
them that they can 't enjoy it. 

Do n't you know that most of the millionaires 
of the world are working to-day, as Mr. Vanderbilt 
said he was, for their board and clothes ? Do n't 
you know, that, with the rarest exceptions, these 
money kings are not one thousandth part as happy 
as they were when they were in moderate circum- 
stances ? Do n't you know that one-half the people 
working in the large factories, which are the glory 
and pride of our city, are in a more enviable 
position, in many respects, and enjoy more real 



AT WORK. 237 

comfort, than a good many of the wealthy and 
heavily burdened manufacturers who employ them ? 

O, young friends, I want you to revise and 
re-cast your estimate of what success consists in, 
to quit gauging your prosperity solely by the money- 
test, and to take into the reckoning such priceless 
commodities as social comfort, moral purity, domestic 
happiness, peace of conscience, a good name, and 
the salvation of your souls ! 

But, whatever your calling, I admonish you 
again to be diligent in it. Diligence, it has been 
well said, is the true philosopher's stone, which 
turns all metals into gold, and makes all occur- 
rences pave the way for final success. On the walls 
of the Delphian Temple was this motto, attributed 
to Periander, one of the seven wise men of Greece : 
"Nothing is impossible to industry" — showing that 
even Pagans knew the worth of this virtue. Solo- 
mon says, " Seest thou a man that is diligent in his 
business. He shall stand before kings." And 
again, in our text, he enforces the duty of diligence 
by bringing the grave before us, by reminding us 
how brief is the period in which diligence is possible 
and how endless the rest to which it leads. 

Be assured of this, my young friends, that all 

who are diligent, assuming good management and 

21 



238 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

frugality to not be wanting, can carve out a meas- 
urable success in life. You may not be gifted nor 
brilliant, but if you are industrious and devoted 
you will prosper. On the other hand, however, if 
diligence be lacking nothing will compensate for it. 
Good luck will not, for I believe with the old 
adage, that " diligence is the mother of good luck," 
and of course if there J s no mother there '11 be no 
daughter. Prayer will not take the place of dili- 
gence, for prayer, if not supplemented by corre- 
sponding effort, is but a mockery and a delusion. 
Faith will not, for faith, without works, is dead, 
being alone. 

People talk sometimes about carrying on their 
business by faith. That 's all right within certain 
limits, but if you mean faith alone, give me, in 
preference to it, a little common sense, a few grains 
of enterprise and a daily advertisement in some 
good newspaper. Even piety won't make you suc- 
cessful in life. You may be never so good, but 
your wicked neighbor, if he shows more diligence 
than you do, and watches the chances more closely, 
will get ahead of you in secular pursuits, and he 
ought to do so. 

We sometimes meet people who say they ? re 
going to let God run their business. My friends, 



AT WORK. 239 

he won't do it. He is n't going to indulge laziness 
that much. He 's given you brains and hands, and 
you must use them. Nothing will take the place of 
diligent effort. That, however, seasoned with prayer, 
strengthened by faith, and hallowed by Christian 
consecration, will always win a measurable success. 

Finally, with all your working, work for God. 

You can do this whether you enter the ministry 
or not. O, for more consecrated Christian workers 
in secular fields! I have no faith in the man who 
wants God to do business for him, but in the 
man who wants to do business for God I 've all 
possible faith. O, for multitudes of such men! O, 
that these young people would all, at the beginning 
of life, take God into partnership with them ! 
Some partnerships are disastrous. Beware of such 
alliances. Think how many, through the agency 
of bad partners, have been wrecked and ruined. 
Here, however, is an offer of partnership which all 
can embrace, not only with safety, but with assur- 
ances of the most happy results otherwise. 

O, young people, God wants to be your partner. 
Will you let him? Christ comes to you and says, 
" Link your fortunes with mine. Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me, and ye shall find rest!" 
Will you have this rest? Not the rest of idleness, 



240 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

but the rest which those have who feel that they 

are in the way of Providence and are working for 

God — such rest as Frances Osgood so beautifully 

describes, when she says: 

Labor is rest — from the sorrows that greet us ; 
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us ; 
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us ; 
Rest from world sirens that lure us to ill. 

Will you have this rest? Rest, not from labor, 
but in labor — the blessed rest which those have who 
do with their might whatsoever their hand findeth 
them to do, and leave the result to the Lord of 
harvest. Will you have it, my young friends ? 

Yes, we want you above all, to work for Christ 
and humanity. Be workers in the Church. Be 
active workers in all moral reforms. Push to the 
front in the great Temperance conflict, Thank 
God, the young people are doing this. That ? s why 
there ? s such a commotion these days, for it *s the 
familiar proverb illustrated, old men for counsel, 
but young men for war. O, young men, let me 
swear you — as the father of Hannibal swore him to 
eternal hatred of Rome — so let me swear you to 
eternal warfare against the rum-traffic and to eternal 
fealty toward the heaven-born, heaven-blessed, and 
all-conquering cause of Prohibition ! And the 
young women the same. 



AT WORK. 241 

O, young people, this is a grand age. The bat- 
tles of the century are on, and every one of you 
may have a part in settling them. It is light 
against darkness, good against evil, the Church 
against the world, God against Satan, rum against 
manly honor, and womanly love, and the welfare of 
little children. That ; s the situation of the con- 
flict. Which side are you on? God help you to 
be on the right side! God help you to be valiant 
champions of all moral reforms — not merely passive 
believers in good causes, but active workers for them ! 

This work for God and humanity is the kind of 
work that endures. The products of your secular 
toil will pass away. Bricks and mortar soon crum- 
ble when the storm touches or the earthquake un- 
settles them. Your flocks and herds may be wasted 
by disease. What are vast moneyed interests in a 
time of general panic? Suppose, however, you 
gather these things, and hold them, in spite of ca- 
lamities of various kinds, till death comes — can 
you take them with you into the other world ? 
Will they be of any use in your coffin ? Where will 
these things all be when you lie moldering in that 
grave, in whose doleful confines there is, as our text 
says, neither work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor 
wisdom ? 



242 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

This is said, however, not to discourage you 
from seeking these worldly blessings in moderate 
quantity, but to show you how utterly poverty- 
stricken a man is who lays by him in store nothing 
besides these things, and to emphasize, by contrast, 
the blessed truth, that by working for God and hu- 
manity, we lay up enduring treasure, not on earth 
merely, but in heaven. 

Not long ago I enjoyed a boat ride on a lovely 
lake. The water was as still and clear as crystal, 
and the night gorgeous in its moonlit beauty. 
There were a happy company — three boats full, 
mostly of young people. One of the special de- 
lights of the trip was the echo for which the lake 
is famous. We spoke, and across the still water 
came, at a certain point, a quick reverberation, 
which we recognized at once as the tones of our 
own voices. We sang, and strains of sacred mel- 
ody floated back. We laughed and shouted, and 
it was the same. A delightful time we had, and it 
brought forciby to my own mind the fact that the 
echoes afforded in that place, will be one of the 
delights of heaven — the blessed fact that voices 
of peace, and utterances of joy, and deeds of self 
sacrifice, spoken or performed down here, will 
waft their sweet reverberations into our souls when 



AT WORK. 243 

we are away up yonder on that sea of glass which 
John describes, upon whose crystal bosom the 
white-robed are to be borne up as they sing the song 
of Moses and the Lamb. 

So, what if there be no work in the grave ? We 
know there is none, but what of it ; for are not we 
going through the grave into glory, and has not 
Christ said, " Blessed are the dead which die in the 
Lord, for their works follow them?' 7 

O, blessed work for God which never dies — let 
us, my friends, do much of it while we can. I say 
to each, in closing, whatsoever thy hand findeth 
thee to do, do it with thy might; do it for its own 
sake, and do it also in sure and joyful expectation 
of a rich reward. 

Kouse to some work of high and holy love, 

And thou an angel's happiness shalt know ; 
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above ; 

The good begun by thee shall onward flow, 
In many a branching stream, and wider grow ; 

The seed that in these few and fleeting hours 
Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow, 

Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, 
And yield thee fruits Divine in heaven's immortal bowers. 



* ■ -^ 



IX. 



S©^E[g People: ®t Pfe|j. 



* ~» 



OKHIE NTS. 



LAY which meant murder. — Why young people ought to 
play. — Letting off the steam of youthful vigor. — Old heads 
and young shoulders a misfit. — Brutal diversions of the past. — 
How our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were accustomed to amuse 
themselves. — Why the amusement question must always be an 
unsettled one. — Sports which are inimical to health. — Debasing 
pleasures of the sensualist. — Amusements which occupy the 
debatable ground. — Dancing, the card table, and the theater. — 
Tendencies and consequences of worldly amusements. — In- 
jurious excesses. — Evil company. — Card playing and dancing at 
home. — Where these practices lead. — A strong indictment 
against the theater. — Loose morals of the profession. — Effect 
of worldly amusements on personal piety.— Dancing and relig- 
ion — will they mix? — Church members who are at a discount. — 
Progressive euchre and progressive Christianity. — The theater 
and the Sabbath. — Immorality of modern plays. — Test ques- 
tions. — A good general rule. — Something a fashionable lady 
had forgotten. — Pleasures which never surfeit. 



:illlllllllllllillllllllllllllllllli!lllli 



llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilli 



IX. 



Youna People at Play, 



"And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise, 
and play before us. And Joab said, Let them arise."— 11 
Samuel, ii, 14. 

$£0 they arose and the play began. But it was 
qsp the strangest kind of play you ever heard 

tof. They called it play — I call it murder. 
The circumstances were these. Saul was dead, 
and by Divine appointment, the government rested 
upon David. A portion of the kingdom, however, 
was usurped by Ishbosheth, SauPs son. Ishbosheth's 
chief captain was Abner, and David's military 
chieftain was Joab. These warriors have met at 
last, and each having his army with him, a battle is 
imminent. But pending this, the scene of our text 
is enacted. In each army there are young men 
skilled in the art of single combat, and it is agreed 
between the two generals, that, before the greater 

battle is fought, a trial of strength shall occur be- 

247 



248 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

tween these. Such occurrences were not uncommon 
in ancient warfare. Usually, too, they were looked 
upon as a kind of athletic exercise — a little sport 
indulged as a prelude to the more serious combat 
which was to follow. 

In this instance, there are twelve on a side. A 
thrilling spectacle it is. The youths are stalwart in 
frame, and each carries a sword. They approach; 
they fence ; they come together, and then, so well have 
rthey been trained, and so evenly are they matched, that 
simultaneously each thrusts his sword into the heart 
of his fellow, and they all fall down together dead. 

Such was the play spoken of in our text: " And 
Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise 
and play before us. And Joab said, Let them arise." 

Let it be noted that those who did the playing 
on this occasion were young men. We can not ap- 
prove the character of their diversion, but that, being 
young, they should have been inclined to play in 
some manner, and that those older should have aided 
and abetted them in so doing, was one of the most 
natural things imaginable. It was in harmony with 
a law which has held good in all ages and in all 
climes, and a law, too, which, being universal and 
continually operative, must necessarily be at once 
Divine in its origin and beneficent in its effects. 



AT PLAY. 249 

This law is that young people must have recreations 
and amusements. We all require such things in 
some measure, but the young especially need them, 
and, in order to their proper development, must 
have them. 

Upon the subject, therefore, of Young People 
at Play, our first proposition is, that young people 
ought to play. 

"With Abner, we say, Let the young men play, 
and let the young women do likewise. The Almighty 
intended that they should. They have an exuber- 
ance of youthful vigor, and just like an engine 
when it is overcharged with steam, they must let it 
off in some way, or mischief will be done. 

Fond mother, sedate, prim, orderly, a perfect 
model of good behavior, do n't reproach that young 
daughter of yours because she goes skipping to 
school, when you want her to walk there with the 
dignity of a gray-haired matron — poor thing, she 
can ? t help it, and it would be a pity if she could. 

Stern father, picture of manly decorum as you 
are, and, possibly, all the more stately because your 
limbs are a little stiff from age, do n ? t get angry 
because that boy of yours would rather climb a fence 
than go in regular form through the gate, and be- 
cause, when you take him out for a walk, you find 



250 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

that he shows a propensity for circling lamp-posts 
and mounting door-steps, and because, perchance, 
while you want to have him always at your side, 
you descry him, now a distance behind, throwing 
stones at some stray poodle, and then scampering 
on in front in search of some new sensation — do n't 
get angry with the little fellow. He 's just like you 
were when you were a boy. He can 't be quiet and 
orderly, he has so much steam in him. 

So with children of a larger growth. Imagine 
yourselves at a picnic. You older people gather in 
groups for conversation, or perhaps you take a leis- 
urely ramble through the woods, or the men, pos- 
sibly, pitch quoits a little ; not, however, because 
they have any special longing for violent exercise, 
but because it's customary to indulge a little that 
way, and it passes the time. But where are the 
boys and girls? Where are they? Why, they're 
romping, running, jumping, climbing, throwing, — 
playful as the wild deer of the forest. O, won't 
their limbs ache to-morrow ! But they do n't mind 
it ; they can 't help it ; it 's their nature. 

So, too, with the youthful mind. That, also, is 
full to overflowing with the vigor of life. Hence, 
it is perfectly natural for young people to laugh 
easily, to giggle at what seem to us to be trifles, to 



AT PLAY. 251 

want to talk at unseemly times, as, for instance, in 
school and in Church, to be fonder of entertainments 
than of dull sermons, and of light reading than of 
heavy. All this is natural to the youthful mind, 
and it f s no use for these old and middle-aged people 
to deny it, for the fact is, they used to be that way 
themselves when they were young. 

Yes, it 's natural for young people to want to 
play. It always has been and always will be. 
They ought to play, too, for it ? s not only natural, 
but necessary. Their youthful frames need exer- 
cise, in order to their proper development, and 
their opening minds need diversion; for, as the old 
adage truthfully says, 

All work and no play 
Makes Jack a dull boy. 

You talk about putting old heads on young 
shoulders. My friends, it can ? t be done, and if it 
could, I 'd pity the shoulders, and the world as 
well. O, what an existence this would be if we 
all had to begin it where some of us are now, 
with our old fogy notions, our stately manners, 
our long countenances, and our somber, strait- 
laced way of doing every thing decently and in 
order ! 

Not that we undervalue the experience and 



252 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

serious purposes which come with age. We like the 
Autumn in its place. It has abundant fruitfulness 
and much of beauty. Old Winter, too, has his 
beauties and delights. But who of us would want 
it to be always Winter, or always Autumn, or al- 
ways Summer? Who of us would be willing to 
dispense with the glad Spring, which brings along 
its frisking lambs, its merry voices in the woodland, 
its new life coursing through the veins of nature, 
its fresh green grass, and its opening buds of prom- 
ise? So, who of us would be so foolish as to wish 
to dispense with the Spring-time of life ? 

No, no. Let the young people be young people. 
Let them keep youthful just as long as possible. 
Let them crave and seek youthful recreations and 
amusements — it is natural, it is healthful — the more 
sober occupations and diversions of mature life will 
absorb their attention soon enough. With Abner I 
say to-night, Let the young men rise up and play; 
and I want every strait-laced Joab to say, Amen. 

The second thought suggested by our text is, 
that, upon this question of amusements and recrea- 
tions, the world has made considerable progress. 

This play by the pool of Gibeon was brutal and 
bloody. It was play only in name ; in reality it 
was murder ! Such a diversion would not be tol- 



AT PLAY. 253 

erated in this age, nor would many of the amuse- 
ments indulged at a much later period. Little less 
brutal than the fight between these young men were 
the gladiatorial shows of ancient Rome, and but 
few steps removed from these exhibitions were the 
knightly tournaments of the Middle Ages, both of 
which, happily, have no place in our present civil- 
ization, but are, instead, viewed by this age with 
loathing and disgust. 

Truly the world is getting better in some re- 
spects, if not in all. In Spain, not many years 
ago, bull-fights were the popular diversion. It is 
not certain that these shows are entirely abolished 
even yet; but they are unpopular, and they are 
going, thank God, if not gone. See, too, how old 
England has progressed along this line. They were 
a dreadfully brutal set, our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. 
My own father has often pointed out to me the 
place — the old bull-ring — where his father used to 
go, with the rest of the populace, to amuse himself 
by witnessing an old-fashioned bull-baiting, which 
was simply a fight between that animal and a lot 
of savage dogs, to see which could stand the most 
torture without giving up. Yes, the world has 
progressed. I 'm sure, at least, I ? m better than 

my grandfather was in one respect, for I *d never 

22 



254 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

seek diversion in such scenes of cruelty as those ; 
and, what is more important, there are no such 
bloody scenes enacted now for the amusement of 
the people. 

So with prize-fighting and other bloody sports 
so common a generation or so ago. Not that these 
are unknown now ; but they are uncommon, and the 
law holds them to be, no longer a harmless amuse- 
ment, but a crime, while the judgment of all de- 
cent people goes still further, and pronounces them 
a disgrace to human nature. So, too, with some 
other forms of alleged amusement. 

Some of you remember the old barn-raising and 
hog-killing and corn-husking festivals so common 
and popular forty and fifty years ago. Lots of 
fun — the jolliest of times — because there was an 
abundance of whisky, and because even the deacons 
of the Church could imbibe freely without re- 
proach, and every body, who liked to, could get 
reeling drunk ! Such conduct as that was consid- 
ered amusement then, but it is n't now. We con- 
sider it disorderly and outrageous. Yes, the world 
is getting better. The amusements clustering about 
the saloon are not so popular as they were. In 
fact, the saloon itself is under the ban, and so are 
those who, in this age, with so many voices to 



AT PLAT. 255 

entreat and so many warnings to admonish, seek 
their so-called diversions in that place of danger. 

Society has made progress in these matters — 
great progress. The bell of a Christian civilization 
has been ringing through the years — ringing out 
the old and ringing in the new. Nor has this 
progress ceased. We are still in the transition pe- 
riod, and we always shall be, for that matter. One 
age will never be satisfied with the heritage of 
sport left it by another, because each succeeding 
age is more enlightened than the one that went be- 
fore, and has, in consequence, loftier tastes. There 
will ever be amusements to relegate to the back- 
ground, and new ones will be continually inviting 
adoption. This is inevitable, from the fact that we 
are constantly growing. 

Hence, this amusement question will always be 
a debatable one. Hence, too, the great need for 
charity in considering it ; and hence, finally, the im- 
perative necessity for young people, who, beyond 
all others, need diversion and must have it, to ask 
the question often, what is right and what is not 
right ; accepting nothing simply because it comes to 
them under the sanctions of age, and rejecting 
nothing simply because it is new, but rising to 
higher grounds, thinking for themselves, always 



256 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

anxious to know, not what others have done or may 
do, but what they should do with their enlighten- 
ment, in their situation, and in full view of their 
personal accountability to God. 

From this standpoint we advance, naturally, 
to the next proposition suggested by this text, 
which is, that many of the forms of play to 
which young people are invited, are dangerous. 
Like the play to which Abner and Joab summoned 
these young men, there are swords in many of 
these diversions which pierce and wound and some- 
times slay the participants. 

Many forms of sport are dangerous to health — 
some even to life. It is dangerous to go in swim- 
ming, unless the greatest care be taken as to the 
depth and temperature of the water. It is danger- 
ous to play with firearms — dangerous for that young 
man to carry a pistol as a diversion, because some 
day, in a moment of passion or of thoughtlessness, 
he may use it to his own or another's injury. It is 
inimical to physical health for young ladies to exer- 
cise so violently as they often do in skating rinks 
and in ball-rooms — any physician will assure you 
of this, and there have been, alas, in recent years, 
many appalling proofs of it. 

It falls, however, within the province of the 






AT PLAY. 257 

pulpit to look more to moral health than to phys- 
ical, and to be concerned chiefly, as a matter of 
course, not for the bodies, but for the souls of the 
young people. Accordingly, I would warn you 
against amusements and so-called pleasures which 
have in them swords of moral defilement and the 
barbed arrows of disgrace and social ruin. 

Under this head we mention, first, the debasing 
pleasures in which the sensualist revels — those dan- 
gerous delights and indulgences of the lower passions 
to which youth is particularly prone because it has 
such an abundance ol vitality coursing through its 
veins. O, these pleasures of the senses, how they do 
deceive people ! They promise wonders and they 
produce horrors. They hold out the most fascin- 
ating inducements, but, O, how they lie to us ! 
They are the veritable Dead Sea apples — ravishing 
to the sight, but gall to the taste. They are the 
kiss of a black-hearted traitor, for while they kiss 
they stab us. O, the ruin that they work ! First, 
virtue yields to their baneful touch. Voluptas, 
the goddess of sensual pleasure, was represented in 
her temple at Eome as a young and beautiful wo- 
man, well-dressed, elegantly adorned, seated on a 
throne and having Virtue under her feet ! What 
could be truer to life? 



258 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

Yes, the first thing we lose in the Delilah lap 
of sensual indulgence is virtue — womanly innocence 
and manly purity, than which no more precious 
jewels have been intrusted to us by a benign 
Creator. The wreck and ruin, however, does not 
stop here, but like as, often, out at sea, when the 
mainmast has gone, the storm sweeps the deck of 
one thing after another, until the ship itself goes 
down a useless, dismantled hulk — so in this case, 
for, following the loss of virtue, goes reputation, 
honor, health, and then, at last, when nothing is 
left to make it worth enduring, life itself; for, O, 
how true it is, as James wrote, that, Lust when it 
hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, and that sin 
when it is finished bringeth forth death ! 

I warn you, then, against the pleasures, so- 
called, of the lower appetites. I place a red light 
against these diversions. You call them harmless 
pastimes — I call them the open gates of hell. You 
may say, it 's play to indulge them, as Abner and 
Joab did in our text — the Bible says it 's death, and 
too often, alas, it is the second death of endless 
perdition. 

In this same category, too, are we compelled to 
place what are commonly denominated the pleas- 
ures of the world, by which we mean the amuse- 



AT PLAY. 259 

ments and diversions that are most popular in 
worldly society, such as cards, dancing and theater 
going. 

We do not put these on the same footing with 
the low sensual indulgences against which we have 
warned you. They belong, we know, to a higher 
grade than those. They are practiced, in fact, by 
many persons of both sexes who would reprobate 
the conduct of the sensualist as vehemently as does 
any pulpit. These are the forms of indulgence 
that occupy the debatable ground constituting so 
large a part of this amusement question. Sincere 
and good people differ in regard to them. Hence 
they are not to be condemned by a flourish of the 
hand, nor by mere invective. They must be con- 
sidered calmly. The Christian minister, like others, 
must reason about them, and must expect to win 
his case, if he win it at all, by fair statements, by 
showing a proper regard for the opinions of other 
good people, and by such a course, altogether, as is 
calculated to convince the judgment of his hearers. 

Of all the questions occupying the attention of 
young people, this is, in many respects, the most 
important. Candidly, then, let us sift and weigh it. 

The objection to these pastimes is not so much 
that they are evil in themselves. We might even 



260 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

admit that, abstractly considered, if it were pos- 
sible to so consider them, they are not evil. The 
difficulty is, however, that we can not consider 
them in the abstract; they must be looked at in 
the concrete. The tendencies, the surroundings, 
and the consequences of a practice are really an 
inherent part of that practice, and our contention 
with reference to the particular practices of which 
we are now treating is, that their tendencies are 
always evil, that their surroundings are nearly 
always bad, and that their consequences are fre- 
quently, and, indeed, generally, so harmful as to 
make it not only unwise, but unsafe, to indulge 
them at any time or in any degree. 

Against each of these worldly pastimes the 
charge lies, unrefuted and irrefutable, that their 
tendency is to plunge those who follow them into 
injurious excesses. The card table means late 
hours — consequently, injury to health and neglect 
of other duties. I 've been told that there are peo- 
ple in this city who attended as many as thirty 
card parties last winter, none of these parties closing 
till after midnight, and many of them continuing 
until two o'clock in the morning. Now, is that 
right? Is it religious? Is it reasonable? 

So with dancing. Get into the whirl and you 



AT PLAY. 261 

never get enough of it. With young people, when 
they have the dancing habit fully developed — es- 
pecially if the young lady has overheard some one 
remark what a beautiful waltzer she is, or the young 
man has observed that the girls admire his beautiful 
form — with such as these, those having the dancing 
habit fully developed — it 's dance, dance, dance, 
through the night, into the morning, and on, from 
night to night — all the thought and talk being of 
dancing, too, during the interims — until you ; d sup- 
pose these giddy creatures were all legs, and until 
they are no more fitted for the serious duties and 
sober occupations of our intense American life than 
the dancing dervishes of the Orient would be ! 

So with the theater — go once, want to go again. 
Go occasionally, want to go frequently. Results — 
money wasted, sensibilities enervated, the artificial 
overtopping the real in your thought, and too 
often, alas, as a consequence of the immoral ele- 
ment predominating in popular plays, character 
undermined and the life shaded and shattered by 
evil habits ! 

It is not claimed that these worldly pleasures 

produce these results in all cases. Some, we are 

aware, resist their fascinations and indulge in them 

with moderation. But many do not — the majority 

23 



262 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

of those who follow them in early life do not. 
Hence I warn these young people to keep aloof from 
them. 

Another indictment standing, fully proven, 
against these worldly amusements is that the in- 
dulgence of them opens the door of evil company to 
us, and thus places temptations in our way, from 
which we otherwise might be free. 

The young man who learned cards, and learned 
to love them, by playing at home, is an easy prey 
for gamblers. In fact, he possesses an accomplish- 
ment which fits him to make himself at home in 
the worst places, and in the vilest company, in the 
world; for cards are not only the tools used in the 
gambling hells, but they are the favorite pastime in 
every saloon and in every brothel. 

The young lady who learns to love dancing, 
and to excel in it, by quiet, harmless indulgence 
within the sacred shelter of her own parlor, with 
father's eyes to look on admiringly, and mother's 
heart to throb with pleasure — that young lady is 
easily enticed into the ball-room, where other eyes 
watch her — the eyes of the libertine, and where 
the hearts about her, some of them, at least, are 
throbbing, not with innocent delight, but with the 
low pulsations of sensual lust. 



AT PLAY. 263 

Think, too, of the company you keep, and of the 
temptations which surround you at the average 
theater. 

All right, says that young man, let us think of 
it. Here 's my mother, as pure as heaven's sun- 
light — she goes. Granted. Here 's my sister, as 
innocent as an angel — she goes. Granted. Here 's 
my employer and his wife, respectable people, the 
bon ton — indeed, Church people — they go. Granted. 
In fact, he continues, I can see in all directions, 
when I 'm there, some of the best people in the 
city. Granted. 

We admit all this, but you have n't told us the 
whole story. You have n't told us that the worst 
people in the city find the theater a congenial place. 
Yet, is not this a fact? Is it not a fact that the 
worst classes in our large cities seek their nightly 
amusement in the theater, and that they find the 
theater congenial to their tastes ; and if this be so, 
does it not constitute a strong indictment against 
that place? 

Another thing you haven't done — you've not 
directed our attention to the people behind the foot- 
lights. Yet, is it not generally known, that, with 
some grand exceptions, who shine all the more con- 
spicuously because of their bad surroundings — with 



264 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

these exceptions, is it not generally known that the 
members of the dramatic profession have indifferent 
ideas on the subject of personal virtue, and that many 
of them play fast and loose in the most flagrant man- 
ner with the marriage tie ? In point of fact, I want to 
know whether the theatrical profession, as it is pur- 
sued before us to-day, does not foster immorality on 
the part of those following it; and if this be con- 
ceded, or even justly suspected, then I want to know 
whether it is such a profession as a Christian civili- 
zation should encourage, or such as moral and Chris- 
tian .people can consistently patronize ? 

We go further, however, and charge these 
worldly amusements with being directly inim- 
ical to personal piety and to the interests of the 
Church. And this, after all, is the true test to 
apply to them. Certainly, the Christian minister 
must apply this test. 

Let me admonish these young people that what- 
ever is contrary to godliness, is contrary to their 
best and truest welfare — that whatever draws them 
away from the Church, or lessens their interest in 
Christian work, or unfits them for whole-souled 
participation in the spiritual duties of the religious 
life — let me admonish you, my young friends, that 
whatever affects you in these ways, affects you in- 



AT PLAY. 265 

juriously. And now, I ask, Is not this the effect 
of dancing parties ? Is it not the effect of the card 
table? Is it not the effect of theater going? Do 
young people who dance, or older people, for that 
matter, show any love for the Church prayer- 
meeting ? Is it easy to persuade such people to give 
their hearts to God? Or is it not a fact, as my 
observation convinces me it is, that worldliness so 
fills the hearts of such people, and especially young 
people of this class, as to make it almost impossible 
to move them, or even touch them with relig- 
ious truth ? 

Ah, that Christian young lady understood this. 
A company of young folks had gathered, at her in- 
vitation, for an evening party, and they were deter- 
mined to turn it into a dance. " All right," she 
said, when expostulations proved useless, " but before 
you begin, I want to sing." So she seated herself 
at the piano, and trilled out in soft, sweet cadences, 
the hymn beginning, 

I would not live alway ; I ask not to stay ; 
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way- 

Now, do you suppose there was any dancing after 
that? Ah, you may be sure there was not, for say 
what you please, it still is an incontrovertible fact, 
that, in the thought and feelings of enlightened 



266 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

people, whether young or old, Christians or non- 
Christians, dancing and religion do n't mix well. 
Take the dancing members of any Church in this 
city, and I venture the assertion, that, even in the 
minds of people not themselves connected with the 
Church, such Church members are at a discount. 
Ah, my young friends, if you wanted to inquire 
your way to Jesus, or to find your true ideal of 
what his followers should be, you would go, not to 
this class of Church members, but to the very op- 
posite class. 

So in regard to the devotees of the card table, 
and I 've already shown that all who engage in this 
pastime are in danger of becoming devoted to it; 
how seldom do you find such Church members as 
these in attendance at the prayer-meeting, and more 
seldom still would you meet them in the inquiry 
room, or at the altar where seeking penitents were 
kneeling. Are the Christian professors who give 
and attend progressive euchre parties the ones you 
would send for to pray with you in sickness, or 
when death threatened? 

Ah, here's another clear case, for whatever hin- 
ders the religious life, whatever unfits for Christian 
service or undermines Christian influence, is evil ; 
and since, according to this test, progressive euchre 



AT PLAY. 267 

is inimical to progressive Christianity, we hold, in 
the name of God, that progressive euchre ought to 
go, and that the sooner it goes the better. 

So with the theater. Some theaters are better 
conducted than others. They all, however, belong 
to the one class, and the class is bad. We lodge 
this indictment, amongst others, against the theater. 
We charge it with a determined effort to break 
down the Lord's Sabbath, and we cite, in proof, the 
open Sunday theaters in Cincinnati and other places, 
and the shameless prostitution of law, in the former 
city, to bolster up this iniquity. 

Another charge we lodge against the theater as 
an institution is that the generality of plays pre- 
sented are not only inimical to Christianity, but 
that they work injury to morals. But do they not 
teach moral lessons, you ask ? Yes, but think of 
the filth most of them drag you through to do it ! 
Do they not, in the end, make virtue triumphant ? 
True, but see how, in this process, they have famil- 
iarized you with vice, and what a glamour of false 
glory they have thrown around bad characters as 
they ? ve gone along ! How prone are the popular 
plays of the period to make good people appear 
only as base hypocrites, and the brazen libertine, 
on the contrary, to strut before us as a " hail fellow 



268 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

well met," with so many good qualities that we 
ought to admire him ! 

Ah, here is another clear case, as it seems to me. 
Tell me there are exceptions. I admit it. Tell 
me the management of some theaters is as good as 
it can be, considering what the theater is. I ad- 
mit it. Tell me some actors and actresses are shin- 
ing examples of personal virtue, and that some of 
them show benevolent impulses which might well 
put to the blush some of the niggardly among our 
Church members. I admit it. Tell me that some 
plays are entirely unobjectionable in themselves, 
and that their immediate effect upon the audience 
is to soften hard hearts and engender good feelings 
and purposes. I admit it. 

We admit all these exceptions, cheerfully and 
without reserve. This, however, bear in mind, 
does not redeem the theater as an institution, nor 
does it exempt from harm and blame those who 
uphold such an institution by their patronage ; for 
the question is, not how some actors and actresses 
live, but what is the general trend of the life of 
the profession, taken as a whole ; not, what is the 
management of a few theaters, but how are such 
places usually conducted? not, what good some 
plays may do, but how much evil plays in general 



AT PLAY. 269 

are doing. And having measured it by these tests — 
the tests of religion, of morality, of facts, and of 
sound logic, we renew our allegation that the the- 
ater of to-day is, equally with the card-table and 
the dance — is, in fact, more so than either of those — 
directly injurious both to personal religion and to 
the general interests of Christianity and the Church. 
In closing, we say again, however, Let the 
young people play ; let them have amusement and 
recreation and sport, and the older people as well. 
Our judgment of what is safe for you closes the 
doors upon some avenues of pleasure ; but there is 
a wide field outside of these. We have mentioned 
some forms of play, which, like that indulged by 
the young men of whom our text speaks, have cut- 
ting swords in them, which slay the principle often, 
and let the life-blood of honor and virtue drip from 
us. Against these we utter our protest and warning. 
Would that we could particularize now in the other 
direction ; but want of time forbids. We give you 
simply this general rule. We would have you fol- 
low only such forms of recreation and amusement 
as promise good results to health and character, 
always satisfying yourselves, too, that the promised 
good is not going to be more than counterbalanced 
by the danger or harm incurred in getting it. 



270 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

There ; s a homely adage which says that it 
doesn't pay to suck honey from thorns. Remember 
this. Remember, too, the Scriptural injunction to 
abstain from all appearance of evil. Remember, 
furthermore, that, young as you are, you are hast- 
ening on very rapidly to the death-bed and the day 
of reckoning. Remember Solomon's words — Re- 
joice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart 
cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in 
the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine 
eyes; but know thou that for all these things God 
shall bring thee into judgment. Remember this 
coming judgment, and indulge in no sport that you 
will regret then. 

O, these late hour card parties, and these ex- 
citing dancing parties, and these evenings of lan- 
guishing pleasure spent at the theater, and these 
doubtful associations and dangerous flirtations for 
which the skating-rink is noted in many places — 
O, these doubtful pleasures ! — how, think you, they 
will look when we view them from close proximity 
to the shroud and the coffin? 

A lady was speaking in company of the pleas- 
ures of going to the theater. First, she said, there 
was the pleasure of thinking of the scenes which 
were to be acted before going; secondly, the pleas- 



AT PLAY. 271 

ure of witnessing them when there ; thirdly, the 
pleasure of remembering them after they were over. 
A person overhearing, observed, " There is one pleas- 
ure you 've forgotten." " What 's that ?" " The pleas- 
ure of thinking of the theater when you come to die." 
" Ah," said the lady, " I never thought of that." 

O, young friends, remember the death-bed, and 
if it 's pleasure you want, real, satisfying pleasure — 
pleasure that will stand the test of the dying hour, 
and will look well in the white light of the day of 
judgment, seek it, I beg you, not in self, nor in the 
world, but in the comforts and hopes of the Chris- 
tian religion. 

We want you to play, but we would not have 
you depend for happiness upon your pastimes and 
sport, because we know that if you do you '11 lean 
upon a broken staff. Instead of this, we want you 
to lean upon the arm of Christ, and let him lead 
you to fountains of joy which never fail, and whose 
waters never turn bitter to the taste. 

The pleasures of sense, some one has said, will 
surfeit, not satisfy — but the pleasures of religion 
satisfy and never surfeit. The poet understood that 
when he wrote so beautifully : 

Fade, fade each earthly joy, 
Jesus is mine ; 



272 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

Break every tender tie, 

Jesus is mine. 
Dark is the wilderness, 
Earth has no resting-place, 
Jesus alone can bless — 

Jesus is mine. 

Farewell, ye dreams of night, 

Jesus is mine ; 
Lost in this dawning light, 

Jesus is mine ; 
All that my soul has tried, 
Left but a dismal void, 
Jesus has satisfied — 

Jesus is mine. 

Ah, there is true pleasure, my young friends. 
We would not, however, debar nor discourage you 
from seeking diversion, within proper limits and 
with proper safeguards, in other directions. It is, 
in fact, to stimulate and guide you in the quest for 
such pleasure as this that we have addressed you 
upon this subject to-night. And again we say, Let 
the young people play before us — it 's right, it's 
good, it 's necessary. Let the young people arise 
and play before us, says this Abner, and let every 
Joab say, Let them arise. . 



* - -Hfe 



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Bosmg People: ie> |>©@ie;1 



* ■» 



(SONIPB NTS 



EFINITION of society. — Proper attitude toward society. — 
Temptations presented in this realm. — Influence of society 
in molding character. — Where young people find their life- 
partners. — Sphere of life's grandest opportunities. — Society as 
an organism for the spread of human influence. — Safeguards 
of social intercourse. — Life on the Atlantic. — Surest method of 
findinggood associates. — Society's slaves. — Gossips and scandal 
mongers. — Society as a thief 'of time. — The cynic. — Dudes and 
flirts. — Paupers upon society. — People whose feelings are easily 
hurt. — How to be above slights. — Masquerading in borrowed 
characters. — -A butterfly, or a bee, which? — Saying No with a 
big N. — The honor of being singular. — Need of reformers in 
society. — Depraved men and fallen women ; how they should 
be treated. — How society trusts us. — Value of a civil tongue. — 
How to be beautiful. — The model lady and true gentleman. — 
Advantages of going into society as a Christian. — The real 
"Kings" and "Queens" of society. — The society belle. — Our 
society life what we make it. 



i]|lllllllll lllllllllllllllll^l lllllllllllllllllllli:i!l 'T^^^ .'^^ , 




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ii!iiiiiii!iiinr__ ;!:iiii!iiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiniiiiiii 



Illilllllllilllllllll 




X. 



Youna People in oociety. 



" I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, 
hut that thou shouldest keep them from the evil."— John xvii, 15. 



jHIS was our Lord's prayer for his disciples. 
He did not desire that they should be taken 
out of the world, either in the sense in which 
he himself was about to leave it, viz., by 
death — not immediately, at least, nor in the sense 
in which those leave it who withdraw entirely from 
its business and pleasures, and seek seclusion in the 
monastic idea. His desire was, rather, that his fol- 
lowers should remain in the world ; that they should 
take part in its pursuits; that they should mingle 
in its society to a certain extent, and should par- 
take, in moderation, of its legitimate enjoyments. 
At the same time, however, though they were to be 
in the world, they were not to be of it, nor like it ; 

and, above all, were they to avoid such intercourse 

275 



276 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

with the world as would bring defilement to their 
souls. " I pray/' He says, " not that thou shouldest 
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest 
keep them from the evil/' or, as the Revised Ver- 
sion puts it, " that thou shouldest keep them from 
the evil One/' who is elsewhere spoken of in the 
Scriptures as the god of the world. 

What Christ desired with reference to his disci- 
ples is equally His wish, no doubt, in regard to the 
relations which young people should sustain to so- 
ciety. By society we mean that part of our lives 
lying outside of the two special domains of home 
and business — the department in which we touch 
our fellow-creatures socially, in which we find our 
companionships, and form our associations, and 
spend, necessarily, very much of our time. This is 
what we mean by society, and we repeat, that, un- 
questionably, it is the will of Christ, not that these 
young people should keep out of this sphere, but 
that they should go into it; though, at the same 
time, He would clearly have them go into it with 
caution, and would most certainly have them kept 
from whatever of evil may lurk there. 

Eeally, young people can not help going into 
society. We are social beings by nature, and the 
God who created us recognized this fact by an- 



IN SOCIETY. 277 

nouncing, at the very beginning, that it was not 
good for us to be alone. Not only, too, is this a 
natural endowment, but we find, also, that it is an 
endowment which is quickened and invigorated by 
the operations of grace ; for a genuine religious ex- 
perience, far from tending to hold us back from 
social contact with our fellow mortals, rather impels 
us toward them, making us not less friendly than 
we were, but more friendly. Really, too, contact 
with society is necessary to both young and old. 
It is needful to the proper development of char- 
acter, for there are lessons to be learned, and tests 
to be endured in this realm, such as are not fur- 
nished either in the quiet life of home or in the 
rivalries and stern contests of business. We might 
even go farther, and say that a measurable partici- 
pation in the social amenities of life is necessary to 
the continuance of the race. 

No wonder, therefore, that our Savior should be 
willing to have us enter society. How could He 
feel otherwise, knowing the necessity for it, and being 
aware, also, as He must, of the capabilities of good 
inhering in this department of our earthly exist- 
ence. Obviously, too, He is aware of the dangers 
lying along this pathway. Hence, the note of warn- 
ing in our text, and the earnest prayer, that, whilst 

24 



278 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

we mingle in society, we may be kept from the 
Evil One. May God hear and answer this prayer 
in behalf of the young people before me ! 

Upon this theme of Young People in Society, 
we offer, first, a few general observations — a few re- 
marks intended to show how important is this 
sphere of life. 

Let me assure you at the outset that you will 
meet in society your greatest temptations. 

To leave the sacred shelter of home and go out 
into the world is a process not unlike the removal 
of plants from the warm, even atmosphere of the 
conservatory, into the chill air, the changing con- 
ditions and the unavoidable exposure to which they 
are subjected out of doors. It is a necessary pro- 
cess, but a delicate one, and is attended with 
many perils. The frosts may bite these plants, or 
the warm sun may scorch them, or, for that matter, 
as is sometimes the case, prowling miscreants may 
carry them bodily away. 

Yes, young people in society have, indeed, much 
to endure. There are the cold frosts of irreligion 
with which they come in contact occasionally. 
There are also the warm heats of worldly pleasure 
which at times are brought to bear upon them. 
There are tempters in human form waiting to carry 



IN SOCIETY. 279 

them off; if not to carry them off entirely, at least 
to transport them beyond the border line of inno- 
cence and purity. Such temptations as these do not 
invade the sacred circle of home ; they accost us 
only outside, in society. It is really, therefore, in 
society that the battle is fought which settles our 
destiny for both worlds. A life and death struggle 
this, and some of you are waging it now. God 
help such as these ! The prayers of all good peo- 
ple attend them; what is more and better, the 
Savior is praying for them, offering to God the sup- 
plication of this text, that while they are in the 
world, they may be kept from the evil. 

We remark again, that your society life will, of 
necessity, have much to do in molding, your char- 
acters. 

Home has its part in this work. So has school. 
So has the Church. But society also has its share, 
and a large and important share it is. How often 
are the influences of home dissipated by counter 
influences outside ! How often, in the gay whirl 
of social festivities, are the effects of the school 
life frittered away! How often, too, does society, 
with her pleasing and delusive wand, charm from 
us the serious thoughts which even the Gospel has 
engendered. Sometimes, alas, this gay sorceress 



280 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

exercises such marvelous power as to drive even 
the Spirit of God from the soul of youth. Have 
we not known such cases — the young lady just on 
the point of committing herself a living sacrifice to 
God, when some new breeze of social dissipation 
catches her, and carries her off into Satan's 
service — the young man, almost persuaded to be a 
Christian — -just ready to start — when the influence of 
a few evil companions overmaster these good pur- 
poses, and make a confirmed worldling of him? 

Yes, it is only too true. Society does exercise 
an enormous power. She can make or mar us, 
and if we do not look out sharply, she will mar us. 

By the power of society, I mean the power of 
the company we keep, and that subtle, irresistible 
influence which we inhale into our spirits from the 
diversions we indulge, and the places of enter- 
tainment we frequent. The old proverb says : Tell 
me the company you keep, and I '11 tell you who 
you are. Still another : Tell me with whom thou 
goest, and I '11 tell thee what thou doest. Ah, how 
true, and how strongly confirmatory of our prop- 
osition that the society in which we mingle will 
have much to do in molding our characters! 

An incidental, but exceedingly important thought 
in this connection is that these young people are 



IN SOCIETY. 281 

certain to find in the world of society in which 
they niove, not merely the companions of their 
youth, but those associates, if they ever have any, 
who will go hand in hand with them through the 
subsequent stages of life's journey ; for young peo- 
ple will marry, you know — at least most of them 
will — and is it not inevitable that they must mate 
and pair off with those in their own circle, their 
acquaintances and associates in the particular society 
in which they move? This we mention to show 
how important a factor is society in determining 
human destiny, and how very careful young peo- 
ple should be, in consequence, to surround them- 
selves with good society. 

While, however, it is true, that young people 
find their greatest temptations and meet their great- 
est perils in society, it is also true that they find in 
that sphere their grandest opportunities. 

Grander this than the home sphere, because so 
much more extensive. Grander, too, because, as 
already observed, it subjects us to severer tests and 
calls for stronger powers of resistance. Grander, more- 
over, because there ? s more room in it for development 
and usefulness. Yes, here, without a doubt, are the 
grandest opportunities our many sided life affords. 

Allusion has been made to the great power 



282 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

which society has over individuals. But does not 
this suggest, by a logical necessity, the great power 
which one individual may have over other individ- 
uals; for is not society simply an aggregation of in- 
dividuals, and if others can touch me, can not I 
touch them, and when one is touched, may not the 
effects, like an electric shock, leap from heart to 
heart, and from life to life, until the whole mass 
are influenced? 

O, young people, I want you to think of this. 
I want you to look upon society as an organism, 
instituted by the Almighty, to afford man his grand- 
est scope for work, and his grandest opportunities 
to make his influence felt. There is really not one 
of us but can do wonders in society if we will. 
We can touch chords whose sacred harmonies will 
make heaven musical forever. We can start 
thoughts and feelings, which, like the air waves 
caused by the human voice, shall not cease to pul- 
sate until the atmosphere all about us has felt their 
throb. In a word, just as when the whistle blows, 
and the engineer, by moving a lever, sets the ma- 
chinery to humming in one of these great factories, 
so, by the lever of pure lives, of sanctified examples, 
and of consecrated efforts can you young people set 
the mechanism of society in motion, making wheels to 



IN SOCIETY. 283 

turn for God which otherwise would stand still in 
worldly sloth, and causing human beings to do 
work for Him which shall never die — work whose 
effects shall survive when these factories and their 
products, with all other material things, including 
time itself, shall blend in a common ruin; and 
work, too, which shall bless those who performed 
it, as well as bring glory to God, 

While life and thought and being last, 
Or immortality endures. 

This is what young people can do when they go 
into society in the spirit of our text, striving to 
realize the Savior's prayer that they may be kept 
from evil; for to be kept from evil is the surest 
way of being fitted for usefulness ; nor can there be 
any doubt that that wide part of existence which 
we call the social domain, afford us opportunities 
of usefulness such as one can not find in either the 
limited sphere of home or the active pursuits of our 
regular business life. 

But from these observations, we proceed now to 
the more serious and responsible duty of giving ad- 
vice to these young people as to how their social 
life should be guarded and improved. 

We throw out first a few safeguards. 

Remember, at the outset, that the society in 



284 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

which you move will be largely, almost entirely, of 
your own choosing. 

Going through life is a good deal like going 
across the Atlantic in one of the magnificent steamers 
plying between New York and Liverpool. There 
are all sorts of people aboard — good, bad, and in- 
different; and after recovering from sea-sickness, 
about the first thing you do is to select your com- 
pany. You can have just about what you please. 
Possibly you divide off with good people, people 
whose sports are innocent, whose tastes are pure, 
whose conversation is elevating, and who use the 
journey as a means for acquiring wholesome knowl- 
edge. If you do, all right. Possibly, however, you 
associate with the other crowd, those who delight in 
lewd stories, who spend most of their time at the 
card table, who visit the bar frequently, people, of 
whom there are some on every ship, to whom the 
voyage is but an occasion for a grand carousal. 
And if you do associate with this last-named crowd, 
whose fault is it? To be sure they were there. 
But were not the other class there also, and did n't 
you have your choice? And is it not just the same 
in life ? 

There are all sorts of people about you, my 
young friends, and you can choose from amongst 



IN SOCIETY. 285 

them who shall be your associates. Or, if you can 
not do this absolutely, in every instance, you can 
at least refuse to associate with those you know to 
be unworthy; and this you should do. Better a 
thousand times have no company than bad company. 
Better keep out of society altogether than go into 
evil society. 

John B. Gough said on one occasion, with all 
the impassioned fervor of which his great soul was 
capable : " I would give my right hand if I could 
forget that which I have learned in evil society." 
O, young people, let me guard you at this point. 
You may go into society; the Savior says you may, 
but heaven pity you if you go into evil society. 
This you must shun; and you can shun it. I care 
not how you may be situated at home, nor what 
may be your surroundings in business, nor what the 
plane of life along which you move, the social 
world in which you revolve you can make good or 
bad just as you please. 

Remember, too, that this is a matter with which 

your personal character will have much to do ; more 

to do, really, will this have in determining the 

quality of your surroundings and associates than any 

thing else ; for purity will always attract the pure, 

and nobility the noble, while each of these will just 
25 



286 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

as surely repel its opposites. So that really we are 
all social magnets, drawing to ourselves, out of the 
common mass about us, those for whom we show 
affinities in spirit and conduct. 

Let our young people remember this, and as the 
surest method of finding good associates, let them 
be good. 

And while I caution you against drifting into 
evil society, I also caution you, with equal earnest- 
ness, against drifting with the current in any society, 
even in that which may commend itself to you as 
being on the whole good ; for that which is good, 
considered generally, may not be blameless in its 
separate parts ; and besides, we all know that good 
society, so-called, countenances things occasionally 
which are neither commendable nor safe from the 
Christian point of view. 

I warn you, my young friends, against being 
slaves to society. The very greatest of earthly 
tyrants is fashion, and how many feeble-minded vo- 
taries has she ! Do n't you know that about two 
thirds of the human family do what they do for 
no better reason than that others are doing 
these things? This is the secret of very much of 
that party fealty for which our politics are distin- 
guished. Right or wrong, men follow their leaders. 



IN SOCIETY. 287 

This is why certain forms of amusement maintain 
their popularity. A few plead for them, and the 
rest follow like a lot of sheep. 

So with the tyranny of dress. Let a few per- 
sons decree that a certain shade of ribbon shall be 
worn, or a certain shape of bonnet, or a certain cut 
of gown, and worn it is, regardless of expense and 
of taste as well, sometimes; for it's fashionable, you 
know ; it may be never so unbecoming to some 
forms and faces, but it 's the style, and so it 's gen- 
erally worn. Nor are these the only ways, nor the 
least harmful, in which fashion exercises her des- 
potic sway over men and women, for, unfortunately, 
there are slaves to fashion's mandates within the 
moral sphere. 

Here, my young friends, is another point at 
which I deem it necessary to put you on guard. 
O, do n't be vassals ; be men and women. Think 
for yourselves. Be prepared always to give a good 
reason for what you do. If you do n't believe like 
others, say so, and govern yourself accordingly. I 
refer, of course, not to such comparative trifles as 
dress, but to matters in which principle is involved, 
and where your moral safety and religious honor 
are at stake. In all such matters stand up in manful 
independence for what you believe to be right; and 



288 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

what you believe to be right, that always do, whether 
others do it or not. 

We must caution you, also, upou a few points 
of minor importance — points, however, which will 
have much to do with both your happiness and use- 
fulness in society. 

Do n't be gossips among your associates. It 
seems to me that to have the reputation of being a 
gossip and scaudal-monger is the next thing to 
having a really scandalous reputation, and though 
some of you may not have thought of it before, 
the fact is, that these two things are closely allied 
to each other ; for to roll scandal as a sweet morsel 
under the tongue is a sure sign of a nature that is 
itself naturally prone to scandalous acts. The fellow 
I most detested in my school-days was the tell-tale, 
and I have a supreme contempt to-day, as have all 
high-minded people, for the tell-tales, the gossips, 
and the scandal-mongers of a larger growth, whose 
delight is to send the venom of their evil reports 
through the veins of society, and who seem to have 
the same relish for a rotten act that the buzzard of 
the forest has for a rotting carcass ! Heaven save 
us from such pests, and heaven save you young 
people from ever joining their ranks ! 

Do n't be busybodies either. Do n't meddle in 



IN SOCIETY. 289 

things which do not concern you. Mind your own 
business. Yes, and that reminds me of another 
thing. 

Beware of becoming idlers. Much of the time 
spent in society is time, not only wasted, but stolen. 
In order to proper mental and moral strength, a 
certain amount of seclusion is necessary. We must 
have time for meditation, time to examine ourselves, 
time to sift and digest the information we acquire, 
time for prayer, and for the forming, in our closets, 
with no eye but God's to see us, of those purposes 
and resolves which are to shape our conduct in life. 
Society, however, is exceedingly exacting, and is in- 
clined to be unscrupulous, and unless we watch her 
closely, she will rob us both of the time we need 
for these purposes and of that which should be given 
to the more active pursuits of business. 

Happy the young people who follow the golden 
mean in these matters, spending neither too much 
time in solitude, nor too much in the glare of pub- 
licity, for either of these extremes must be harmful. 
It is all right to be in society, but to live in it 
is neither right nor safe. 

Let me also admonish you against taking into 
society a fault-finding, cynical disposition ; for who 
wants to have any thing to do with one who looks 



290 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

at life continually through blue goggles, who is ever 
turning good into evil by impugning motives, to 
whom virtue never appears any thing but a pre- 
tense, and religion only hypocrisy — who cares for 
the company of such a creature as that — one who is 
always out of humor with his surroundings — and 
of what use is such a creature, excepting as a mor- 
tification, to either himself or any body else ? 

Moreover, do n't be either dudes or flirts in so- 
ciety. Do you not know young people of both sexes 
whose idea of the human frame is that it was made 
chiefly to be a tailor's or dressmaker's dummy — a 
thing on which to exhibit good clothes, and who 
think of society as being simply a kind of display 
window, chiefly useful because it affords such excel- 
lent opportunities for showing off these figures? 
There are many such people in the world, and I 
warn you to not fall into their ways. Be neither 
dudes nor flirts. 

Show me a young lady skilled in the arts of 
flirtation, and who is fond of practicing them, and 
I '11 show you an empty-headed moth playing about 
a candle-flame, which will singe her one of these 
days, until those cheeks, glowing now with virgin 
purity, will smart and tingle with the burning blush 
of shame. And the male flirt is a creature to be 



IN SOCIETY. 291 

equally despised and equally feared. He, in fact, is 
more to be feared ; for while flirting girls may be 
innocent for a time, the men who lead them on are 
never so. They may have a fair enough exterior, 
but in their hearts is the blackness and hideousness 
of perdition itself. 

Let me also advise you to not be paupers in so- 
ciety. You may be surprised to receive such ad- 
vice as this. " Paupers," you will say ; " of course 
we shall not be paupers ; we propose to be self- 
supporting — to make our own living by honorable 
toil." Very good ; I hope you will. But you may 
do this, and still be paupers in one sense — paupers, 
I mean, in the sense of begging continually for at- 
tentions, in the sense of requiring every body to 
make a fuss over you, and of getting huffy if they 
do n't — paupers in the sense of wanting people to 
fawn upon you and to carry you around in the 
arms of a fulsome admiration. 

How many such paupers there are in society ! 
They have nothing to give, but they are always 
begging ; and the worst of it is, do what you may 
for them, they 're never satisfied. Paupers is one 
name for these people, and another is " babies," for 
you have to carry them like babies, and give them 
all sorts of sweet things to keep them in good 



292 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

humor, and even then you do n't succeed. O, what 
a nuisance such people are — a nuisance to every 
body, but the greatest nuisance, it seems to me, to 
themselves ; for how can people be happy who feel 
that they are all the time being slighted — who, as 
some one has coarsely but truthfully expressed it, 
carry their feelings around like a cat's tail, where 
every body can step upon them. 

O, young friends, whatever you are in society, 
great or small, high or low, do n't be paupers. 
Do n't be all the time begging, but be givers. In- 
stead of demanding attention, show it. As for 
slights, if you have noble purposes in life, and an 
honest conscience throbbing in your bosom, you are 
entirely beyond the reach of such things ; for in 
that case you walk on the highest plane upon which 
the foot of mortal ever treads, and since nobody is 
superior to you, how can any one be capable of 
slighting you? 

And this brings us to still another part of our 
subject. 

Having admonished you of the lines of conduct 
to be avoided in society, I must counsel you, in clos- 
ing, as to the positions and courses it will be wise 
for you to maintain and pursue in that domain. 

Be sincere. Avoid affectation in either manners 



IN SOCIETY. 293 

or speech. Do n't wear a mask in society. How 
many do this ! Ah, there are many more masque- 
rade parties than are called by that name ! Look 
at that brilliant company. There is young Mr. 
Jones, and there is Miss Smith ; but they 're not at 
all like the people we know them to be in daily life. 
Really they 're masquerading in characters which do 
not belong to them. Do n't do this any more, 
young people. Be in society what you are at home, 
and, in order to this, be always at home what you 
would want to be if you knew that the eyes of the 
world were upon you. In fact, be sincere every- 
where, at all times, and in all things. 

Be earnest, too. O, these butterflies of society, 
who flit about from one diversion to another, as if 
life were simply a vast pleasure-garden, and as if 
the sole purpose of their existence were to bask 
in the sunlight and flap their pretty wings for the 
mere pleasure of doing so ! — do n't you be of this 
class, but be like the bees, rather, who have a pur- 
pose in life, and who earnestly fulfill that purpose 
by gathering and distributing sweetness, spurred to 
effort by the merry music of their own activity. 

Dr. Arnold expresses a wide-felt want as fol- 
lows : " I meet with a great many persons in the 
course of the year," he says, "and with many 



294 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

whom I admire and like; but what I feel daily 
more and more to need, as life every year rises 
more and more before me, is to have intercourse 
with those who take life in earnest." 

Yes, that is the great want, without a doubt. 
Hence, I enjoin earnestness upon these young 
people. Have a purpose before you. Let it be a 
worthy one, and worthily, then, apply yourselves to 
its accomplishment, being always so intent upon 
making out of life all you possibly can, that you 
shall have no time for repinings, and shall feel no 
need of useless gayety, but shall always be in good 
spirits, because always finding the springs of your 
enjoyment in a good conscience, in noble aims, and 
in useful and honorable toil. 

I counsel you also to go into society prepared to 
show great firmness. Blessed are they who in social 
life can say No when necessary, giving it a big N 
and a very broad emphasis. Lacking this faculty, 
how often these young people will be led astray, 
whereas to possess it will save them from innumer- 
able snares and from many a heart-ache. Take 
your ground and maintain it. Budge not an inch 
for either threats or coaxings or ridicule. To use 
a common but very forcible expression, put your 
foot down, and keep it down. Be firm as adamant 



IN SOCIETY. 295 

in opposition to wrong, and cling with the tenacity 

of heroes, yea, even of martyrs, to the right. 

I beg you also to not be afraid of principles 

that are unpopular, and to consider it a virtue 

rather than otherwise to be called singular, for, 

really, if one is n't singular in this degenerate age 

he is n't much. As the poet says : 

With many or few, 

Let us be true ; 

As in God's sight, 

Let us stand for the right, 

Nor dream of disaster or flight. 

Ever remembering, that, 

When we dare with God to be, 

In the right with two or three, 

We 're on the winning side. 

I would, above all things, have these young 
people make themselves reformers in society. 

Go into society, my young friends, firmly re- 
solved to do what you can to purify and elevate it. 
Keform out the social glass, and just as soon as 
possible we want the saloon eliminated from our 
social system. There are also other abuses we want 
to get rijfl of. Would to God that the theater and 
the card table and the dance had no longer any 
place in society. They certainly should not have 
in your society. Not only, however, should you 
keep away from such questionable amusements your- 



296 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

selves, but you should discourage their patronage 
by others as far as possible. 

God speed the day, too, when the ethics of so- 
ciety shall be so changed that impurity shall be 
just as loathsome in men as it is held to be in 
women ; and when, instead of the unfortunate girl 
being spurned usually and cast out, while the author 
of her ruin is more frequently petted and put in 
high places, this order shall be reversed, the man, 
who nearly always of the two most richly deserves 
it, getting the punishment and being put under the 
ban, while the poor, tempted, trusting woman is 
lifted up in hands of Christian sympathy, and given 
another chance — as our Lord treated such a woman 
when He said, "Thy sins which were many are all 
forgiven thee; go in peace, and sin no more!" 

This leads me naturally to observe that these 
young people should always be honorable in society. 
Think how much society trusts you. Your com- 
panions, what confidence do they repose in you! 
Those who admit you into the sacred asylum of 
their homes, how they trust you ! The presumption 
all around is that you are a person of upright 
intentions, and that you will not violate this con- 
fidence. O, see to it that you do not. Be honor- 
able! 



IN SOCIETY. 297 

Be courteous, also. Kind words and a civil 
demeanor are the cheapest things in this world, in 
one sense, for none are so destitute that they can 
not command them, if they will; and yet, when 
their results are considered, they prove to be, of 
nearly all earthly commodities, the most precious 
and useful. A civil tongue has often made a for- 
tune ; it never fails to help one on in life, whether 
in society or in business. 

In a store window once I saw this sign: "A 
large stock of new goods and civility always on 
hand." O, that it may be thus with you young 
people. Get all the accomplishments you can, 
but be sure to have this, for though you have every 
thing else without it, you ? 11 be at a discount, 
whereas, if you have it, though your stock otherwise 
be small, you, at least, will, in that case, dispose of 
it to the best advantage, and will do better, prob- 
ably, in the result, than one not having civility 
would do, with capital and opportunities ten times 
as great as yours. 

Let me also exhort you to be cheerful. Instead 
of going into society like a streak of the blues, roll 
into it like a bundle of sunbeams. Instead of 
making society a funeral because of your presence, 
have a funeral before you go in, and leave your 



298 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

funereal looks to keep company with the drooping 
willows at the grave. As the hymn says. 
Go bury thy sorrows, 
The world hath its share. 
***** 
Go bury thy sorrows, 
Let others be blest, 
Go give them the sunshine — 
Tell Jesus the rest. 

Nor let any one think that a joyous spirit is in- 
compatible with thorough-going earnestness. I 
should rather think it indispensable to both earnest- 
ness and usefulness. As Carlyle says, " Efforts to 
be permanently helpful must be uniformly joyous — 
a spirit of sunshine — graceful from very gladness — 
beautiful because bright." And, as another has 
aptly observed, " Persons who are always innocently 
cheerful and good humored, are very useful in the 
world; they maintain peace and happiness and 
spread a thankful temper amongst all who live 
around them." O, how true ! How true, also, is 
the eulogy pronounced by Joseph Addison upon 
that blessed quality, so much needed, and so useful 
in society — good nature, "Good nature," he says, 
"is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and 
gives a certain air to the countenance that is more 
amiable than beauty." 

Yes, if you want to be agreeable, so as to be 



IN SOCIETY. 299 

much sought after, be cheerful ; aud if you want to 
be handsome, instead of depending upon the arts of 
the toilet, use nature's cosmetics, keeping your eyes 
bright and your countenance aglow from the inner 
radiance of a genial and noble spirit. 

I would have you be, also, in the highest mean- 
ing of those terms, ladies and gentlemen. 

What is a lady ? A very discriminating writer 
says : "A lady accomplished is like a star with five 
rays, which are the five virtues — devotion, modesty, 
chastity, discretion and charity." There 's your 
model lady — not a doll, not a picture, but a breath- 
ing, living personality, distinguished above all things 
for goodness. 

Nor less significant is the description Thackeray 
gives us of a true gentleman. "To be a gentle- 
man," he says, " is to be honest, to be gentle, to be 
generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all 
these things, to exercise them in the most graceful 
outward manner." There 's your true gentleman — 
not a dude, not a man of polished address merely, 
but a person of character, a being with a soul in him, 
and that soul the very soul of honor. 

Finally, let me urge you to be Christians; and 
this, really, contains the germ of every other quality 
you need. 



300 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

Have I spoken of the peculiar temptations lurk- 
ing in society, and of the- necessity for watchfulness 
and firmness in those who would resist these entice- 
ments? Then, as the best preparation for vigilance, 
get the eyes of your understandings enlightened by the 
Gospel, and as the surest guarantee of moral back- 
bone, get your will baptized and strengthened by the 
power of the Divine Spirit. 

Is a careful choice of associates necessary, and 
is it a fact that the surest way to surround our- 
selves with good company is to be good? I beg 
you, then, to all choose the good part of religion, 
which will make you so pure, so sweet, so noble, 
that good people will be attracted to you as nat- 
urally as honey attracts the bee, or the petals of 
the flower open to the warm touch of the Spring 
sunshine. 

Have I admonished you to not be paupers, but, 
instead of this, to go into society prepared to give, 
and fitted to serve? Then, that you may have 
something worth giving, and may have the highest 
possible motive for bestowing it, get the love of 
God richly shed abroad in your souls, and let 
Christ's love constrain you to love your fellow-men 
as brethren. 

Have I urged you to be sincere, to be earnest, 



IN SOCIETY. 301 

to be courteous, to be honorable, to be cheerful, and 
to illustrate in society what it means to be real la- 
dies and true gentlemen ? I admonish you, then, as 
the sequel to these appeals, that no one can be truly 
sincere who is not a sincere believer in God, in Christ, 
and in a future world ; that the proper measure of 
earnestness can only be shown by those who look 
upon life as a probationary period, and whose faith 
lays hold upon the blessed promise of life eternal ; 
that the secret of true courtesy is to have a con- 
science at peace with God and a heart full of kind- 
ness toward all his creatures ; that the soul of honor 
is the soul in which Christ dwells ; that the torch 
of human cheerfulness burns brightly and steadily 
only when it has been ignited by the Sun of right- 
eousness; that the real lady is the Christian lady, 
and no other, and the true gentleman, he, and he 
alone, who is a man of God. This is the sequel of 
all I have said to you, this the conclusion of the 
whole matter, viz., that you must fear God and 
keep his commandments, must love Christ, and have 
Him enshrined in your natures. 

You talk about the " Kings " and " Queens " 
of society. The true kings and queens in this 
world — those exercising the most potent sway and 

doing the greatest amount of good — are the indi- 

26 



302 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

victuals who have the white seal of Christian purity 
upon their foreheads, and through whose veins pul- 
sates, with healthful, vigorous throb, the blood- 
royal of the kingdom of heaven. 

We occasionally read in the papers an allusion 
to some young lady as " the reigning belle of 
society." Ah, the young lady who really reigns, 
the real princess, is not that frivolous creature who 
flits before our gaze in the ball-room, whose beauty 
is simply in her person or in her adornments, but 
she who has character, she who excels in good- 
ness, she who, as Tertullian expresses it, paints 
her eyes with tints of chastity, inserts into her 
ears the Word of God, ties the yoke of Christ 
about her neck, and adorns her whole person with 
the silk of sanctity and the damask of Christian 
devotion. 

In a word, to go into society with safety and 
profit, we must go into it as Christians. 

Remember and regard this fact, my young 
friends, and all good things are possible to you. 
You will certainly, in that case, be useful in life, 
nor can you fail to find many sweet blossoms of 
happiness springing up in life's pathway. Really, 
if you are whole-souled Christians, you can make 
of life what you will ; and so I say, in closing, what 



IN SOCIETY. 303 

a poet has said with so much spirit and truth, and 
in such beautiful language — words, too, which I 
pray God we may all hereafter practically illustrate 
in. our daily lives : 

Let 's oftener talk of noble deeds, 

And rarer of the bad ones, 
And sing about our happy days, 

And not about the sad ones. 

We were not made to fret and sigh, 
And when grief sleeps to wake it ; 

Bright happiness is standing by — 
This life is what we make it. 

Then here 's to those whose loving hearts 

Shed light and joy about them ! 
Thanks be to them for countless gems 

We ne'er had known without them. 

0, this should be a happy world 

To all who may partake it ; 
The fault 's our own if it is not — 

This life is what we make it. 



* * 



XI. 



i©&®<| People: im tie; (2E®reS, 



* * - 



(s>ONJHE NTS. 



7[j K I N G for a king. — Man's choice not always God's. — Rulers 
w wanted in the realm of morals. — Young people specially 
called. — Relation of young people to the Jewish Church. — 
Bible instances of early piety. — Christ's interest in young 
people. — Special difficulties and temptations besetting this 
class. — Why special efforts are needed in behalf of the young. — 
Victims of false notions. — Antidotes to the pleasures of the 
world, — Needs of young people within the social and intel- 
lectual realms. — How these should be met. — Benefits of a 
Church lyceum. — Salvation first. — Final appeal to young 
people. — Religion their great need. — Its restraints and protec- 
tions. — How early life is "trembling with destinies." — The 
choice of religion preparing for other decisions. — Importance 
of right beginnings. — Irreparable effects of youthful trans- 
gression. — Why young people need the Church. — Cravings of 
the youthful nature. — How these are satisfied in religion. — The 
soul crying out for God. — The only experience which never 
disappoints. — Best time to start in the Christian pathway. — 
How young people may conquer two worlds. — The human 
heart in middle life. — Folly of delay. — The wonderful exchange 
made when sin is abandoned and religion chosen. — Necessity 
of Church membership. — How those who are in Life's Golden 
Morning may remain in it forever. 



Pllllllllllllililillllliillii 







XL 



Youna People in i\)e Gf)urcr). 



"And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? 
And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he 
keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and 
fetch him : for we will not sit down till he come hither." 

— 1 Samuel xvi, 11. 

AMUEL was looking for a king. Saul had 
proven recreant, and a successor was needed. 
& The new ruler was to be found in the house- 
hold of Jesse at Bethlehem. The prophet is 
seeking him there. A feast has been provided; 
the chief men of the city have been called in ; the 
Divine blessing has been invoked, and the cer- 
emony proceeds. " Bring in thy sons," says Sam- 
uel to Jesse, and one by one they pass before him. 
Eliab, the oldest, comes first. Tall, muscular, 
dignified, a picture of manly strength and wisdom, 
no sooner does he appear than the prophet, guided 
by the impulses of merely human judgment, ex- 
claims, " Surely the Lord's anointed is before him." 

307 



308 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

But he was mistaken. " Look not on his counte- 
nance or on the height of his stature," said God to 
Samuel, " because I have refused him ;" and the 
voice from heaven added, for the prophet's guid- 
ance, not only, but as a standing admonition to all 
the ages, " for the Lord seeth not as man seeth ; for 
man looketh on the outward appearance, but the 
Lord looketh on the heart." 

Then came Abinadab, and he also was rejected. 
Then Shammah, to meet a like fate ; and then — 
still, doubtless, in the order of their years — four 
more of Jesse's sons, making in all seven, each in 
turn evoking the Divine announcement, " The 
Lord hath not chosen this." 

The situation was becoming desperate. It could 
not be that the Almighty was mistaken ; and yet, 
did it not appear as though the whole of Jesse's 
sons had passed in review before the Lord's prophet 
without either being designated as the Lord's 
anointed? At this point, however, the conver- 
sation of our text occurred : " And Samuel said unto 
Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, 
There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he 
keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, 
Send and fetch him : for we will not sit down till 
he come hither." 



IN THE CHURCH. 309 

What transpired afterwards is a familiar story. 

This youngest son was David, and he proved to 
be the chosen one. It hardly seemed convenient 
to bring him in, for he was taking care of the 
sheep; but they brought him, and Samuel anointed 
him. In Jesse's thought, the youngest was the 
least important of his children, but in the Divine 
mind he ranked first. This stripling was exactly 
the person God wanted. On his cheek was 
the ruddy glow of health. Through his veins 
coursed the fire of youthful enthusiasm. His mind 
was receptive, and his heart pliable. Because he 
was young he could be trained and molded readily 
to the Divine will. Life was before him. His 
habits were yet to be acquired, and his career to be 
carved out. Exactly the person God wanted was 
this shepherd-boy of Bethlehem. Hence, imme- 
diately upon his appearance, the command was 
given to Samuel, "Arise, anoint him, for this is he." 

What God wanted then is unquestionably His 
special desire to-day, and, as really as in Samuel's 
time, has He commissioned messengers to go out 
and execute this desire. 

The demand is for rulers within the sphere of 
morals. There are vacant thrones of influence 

which he wants to fill. There are scepters of 

27 



310 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

power to be wielded over human hearts ; niches of 
honor to be occupied in the Church ; crowns of 
moral and religious sovereignty to be bestowed. 
This is the demand — this the Divine purpose; and 
His modern Samuels, whose duty it is to make 
known this purpose, and to attend to its execution, 
are the Christian ministers of the age. To Beth- 
lehem must we go, and into the household of 
every Jesse there. In fact, we must go into all 
the world, and must publish God's call to every 
creature. 

Chiefly, however, must we labor with the young, 
for these, as certainly now as when He chose young 
David to be King over Israel, are objects of peculiar 
favor with the Almighty, and are the class to whom 
the special calls of His Gospel are sent. He does 
not reject the others, but He does prefer these. 
There is room in His Church and work in His 
vineyard for the Eliabs and the Abinadabs ; and 
these are wanted and called for. He wants their 
matured judgment, their sober earnestness, their 
steady-going habits of work, their wise counsels, 
seasoned with the long practical experience they 
have had. He wants both the aged and the middle- 
aged. There are places for these which no others 
can fill, and work, which, if not done by their hands, 



IN THE CHURCH. 311 

will necessarily remain undone. Above all, how- 
ever, does God want the Davids — the young people. 

Unquestionably, too, would He have His Church, 
Samuel-like, insist upon these young people being 
brought in. It may cost an effort, but we must 
send and fetch this class. It may not seem en- 
tirely convenient for them to come, but they must 
come. These young people must be brought in, 
for, as in the festivities in the household of Jesse, 
their presence is indispensable. We can not proceed 
without them. The feast will not be complete until 
they come ; the anointing oil of salvation will not 
flow as it should ; the purposes of God will not be 
accomplished, nor will the needs of the Church, or 
the world, be properly met. With Samuel, there- 
fore, we say to-night, " Send and fetch David " — we 
must have him, "and we will not sit down until he 
come." 

Our subject is, Young People in the Church, 
and the first proposition naturally arising from what 
has been said, is, that young people should be the 
chief concern of the Church. 

This, as already intimated, is the will of God. 
Is it not significant that the same Hebrew word 
which means a chosen person is the one commonly 
used throughout the Hebrew Bible to signify a 



312 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

young person? It is not claimed that this proves 
young persons to be universally the special favorites 
of God, any more than His choice of David did ; 
but it does suggest this idea, and it gives an air of 
probability to it. Yes, and the idea is correct. 
Young people are objects of special concern to the 
Almighty, and we have indubitable evidence that 
He wants the Church to be especially concerned 
for their welfare. 

Find this evidence, first, in the fact that the 
Jewish law made all young people members of the 
Church. They were admitted in infancy, and 
parents were bound by the most solemn obligations 
to attend faithfully to their training and develop- 
ment. Who can read the commands given by 
Almighty God to Jewish parents upon the subject 
of properly training the young, and be in any doubt, 
afterwards, either as to the important place young 
people must fill in His affections, or in regard to 
His will as to how the Church should act toward 
this class? 

Notice, too, the frequency with which this class 
are specially addressed by the sacred writers, par- 
ticularly by those, like Solomon and David and the 
Apostles, whose writings are devoted largely to 
moral and religious precepts. See, too, what prom- 



IN THE CHURCH. 313 

inence is given in this book to instances of early 
piety, and what honor is bestowed upon these per- 
sons — Timothy, who from a child had known the 
Scriptures; Joseph, exalted to the Premier's chair 
in Egypt; Josiah, the youthful king of Israel; 
Daniel, and his three companions, taking the high- 
est places in the Babylonish Empire, and last, 
though not least, the two of whom our text speaks — 
Samuel, called from menial service in the Taber- 
nacle to sway the destinies of a great nation, and 
David, lifted from the sheepfold to the throne! 
How prominent are these characters in this book 
of God, and how distinctly is the fact set before us 
that they began to be religious in youth! 

Think, moreover, of the interest taken in young 
people by our Savior ! Were not several of His 
miracles performed upon representatives of this 
class? Was it not a young man, and a piously dis- 
posed young man, of whom is is said that " Jesus, 
looking upon him, loved him," and is it not a fact 
that this is the only instance of the kind noted by 
the Evangelists? Was not John, the youngest of 
the Apostles, the most tenderly regarded by his 
Master, and did not Jesus accord to this young man 
the special honor of leaning upon His bosom? 

We must not forget, either, that the Savior 



314 YOUNO PEOPLE. 

uttered special precepts for the young ; nor that he 
specially appealed to them to seek, at the outset of 
life, a place in his kingdom ; for the passage, " Seek 
ve first the kingdom of God," means that we should 
seek that kingdom first, not only in the order of 
importance, but in the order of time— that is, that 
we should seek it before we seek any thing else 
in life. 

Who then, with these facts before him, can doubt 
that Christ showed a special interest in young 
people, and admitting this, how is it possible to re- 
sist the inference naturally arising from it, viz., that 
he requires a similar course on the part of His 
Church ? 

Readily, too, can other reasons be given why 
the Church should bestow special attention upon 
young people. 

Those who are not saved in youth may never be 
saved. Their hearts may become so hard and their 
lives so enthralled by sin, that churchly influences 
may have no power over them. Moreover, passing 
unsaved through the period of youth, not only is 
there a danger of these young people becoming dead 
to churchly influences, but they may even pass from 
the notice of the Church. Many, alas, do this. 
They were with us up to a certain period, in our 



IN THE CHURCH. 315 

Sunday-schools and in our congregations ; then they 
were absent a Sabbath ; then another, and finally 
they dropped out altogether. This dropping-out 
process is going on in our Churches continually. 
We repeat, therefore, that the time to bestir ourselves 
in behalf of the young people is while we have 
them. God help us to do this ! 

Another reason for special efforts in behalf of 
the young, is, that they have peculiar temptations 
and difficulties to overcome. 

They are situated like David was upon the oc- 
casion referred to in our text. It is not convenient 
for them to attend the Gospel feast ; they have 
something else to do. 

We shall make a great mistake if we imagine 
that it requires little or no effort on the part of 
young people to come out upon the Lord's side. It 
requires a great effort — all the will power they can 
command ; and the Church, in consequence, should 
give them all possible encouragement and assistance 
in this work. 

The fact has been emphasized that these young 
people are wanted by Almighty God, and it is true. 
But others want them as well, and are sparing no 
effort to secure them. Satan is a heavy bidder in 
this market, and so is the world. Both of these are 



316 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

putting forth special efforts in behalf of young 
people. They want the older people, of course; 
but is it not an appalling fact that the snares of the 
world, and the temptations of the Wicked One, are 
of such a nature and are so presented as to be par- 
ticularly attractive to the young? 

Thus, the Church should be especially concerned 
to save these young people, because, obviously, the 
Devil and his emissaries are especially concerned to 
destroy them. Ordinary efforts on our part will 
not meet the case. The opposition are putting 
forth special efforts; so, therefore, must we. The 
young, too, have not only peculiar temptations 
to overcome, but they are the innocent victims of 
many false notions. They have erroneous views 
of life. They are deluding themselves with visions 
which can never be realized. They are building 
up hopes which are only refuges of lies. They 
are grossly mistaken often as to how success 
must be won in life's struggle, and still more 
are they mistaken in regard to the religious life. 
They must, therefore, be labored with regarding 
these points of difficulty and danger. The pulpit 
should invite to a free discussion of these subjects, 
and the Church generally should show an interest 
in them. We must correct these erroneous views. 



IN THE CHURCH. 317 

We must inculcate true views, and instill wholesome 
principles in their place. In a word, we must re- 
move the difficulties from the pathway of youth ; and 
in order to this, the Church, we maintain, must 
carry this special class upon its heart, just as 
God does, and must put forth its best efforts to 
save them. 

Since, too, the greatest hindrance to youthful 
piety is in the fact that the pleasures of the world 
have so much power over the youthful mind, the 
Church should not consider that she has done her 
duty by this class until she has furnished them with 
an antidote to these worldly pleasures. This, we 
are aware, is to be found primarily in the religious 
experience and in the Christian work to which they 
are invited. We plead, however, for something 
supplemental to this. While the world offers attrac- 
tions which gratify the sense and please the taste, 
let the Church, within proper limits, do the same. 

Young people have a social life. This, indeed, 
is that part of existence in which most of their time 
must be spent. It is the sphere, also, within which 
their greatest temptations will arise. Let us remem- 
ber this, and to meet these social instincts and 
necessities of youth, let the Church be made a center 
of social power, and, as far as possible, a place 



318 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

where all innocent social delights may be found. 
These young people have, also, an intellectual life. 
They must read ; they must think ; they must scale 
the heights of knowledge; they must seek intel- 
lectual diversion. It is at once proper and neces- 
sary that they should do this, and far from deploring 
this fact, or restraining this tendency in youth, the 
Church should make haste to recognize, to encourage, 
and to utilize it. The world began to do this long 
ago, and if it would compete successfully for their 
souls, the Church must do the same. 

Since these young people will read, let the Church 
supply them with reading that is wholesome and 
beneficial. Since they must think, let the Church, 
from her pulpits, through her libraries, and by other 
means, furnish them with suitable materials for 
thought. Since they will climb the heights of 
knowledge, let the Church take their hands and 
serve as their guide in this exhilarating and some- 
what dangerous exercise. Since they must have in- 
tellectual diversion, let the Church give them this — 
the genuine article, such as will divert without tend- 
ing to destroy — presenting a counter attraction to 
theaters and dancing parties, in the innocent amuse- 
ment and the pure social delights of the Reading 
Eoom, the Literary Circle, and the Church Lyceum. 



IN THE CHURCH. 319 

Not that such things as these can fill the place 
of the distinctively religious services of the Church ; 
they can not. Nor that they can make up to the 
mind and heart of youth what must always be lack- 
ing in the absence of a personal religious experi- 
ence. Not at all. We put salvation first. 

The prime object of the Church is, to save 
souls, and in seeking to accomplish this her first 
care must be to preach a pure Gospel, and to pre- 
sent adequate opportunities for Divine worship. 
See, though, what a wide field for effort is open 
to her beyond these limits. Really, in the ac- 
accomplishment of her heaven-ordained object, the 
Church of Christ may properly press into service 
every good agency which the ingenuity of man, 
sanctified by the grace of God, can possibly invent. 

Such social and literary appliances as those for 
which we are pleading do not, we repeat, take the 
place of religious services, nor do they supersede 
the necessity for a personal religious experience. 
Certainly not. But while this is true, it is also 
true that they are not inimical to either of these 
things. We hold, indeed, that, in the nature of the 
case, such entertainments and diversions, held under 
churchly patronage, having their origin in the 
Church, and being controlled by those who have at 



320 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

heart the interests of the Church, must, of neces- 
sity, be helpful, both to the Church itself, and to 
the special class for whose benefit they are designed. 
They are a blessing to the young people in ways too 
numerous to elaborate at this time — particularly, 
however, in these ways — that they are a standing 
proclamation of the Church's interest in young 
people ; a constant advertisement of the fact, that 
the Church understands the peculiar temptations 
and difficulties of young people ; a continual invi- 
tation to young people to make the Church their 
home, to seek their society and find their pleasures 
within its pale ; and, in consequence of all these 
things, a perpetual proof that the Church is making 
an honest effort to do what Samuel did, viz., to bring 
in David, or, in other words, to fulfill her heaven- 
imposed mission to be a special friend, a special 
benefactor, a special means of salvation to the 
swarming hosts of young people about her. 

If, however, the Church owes a duty to young 
people, no less do they owe something to her. Our 
text, too, distinctly suggests what that is. 

In that drama at Bethlehem there were several 
parts. Samuel had his part, and David his. The 
prophet's part was to extend the call — to insist upon 
the young man's presence. This he did. " And 



IN THE CHURCH. 321 

Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him : for 
we will not sit down until he come." That was 
the prophet's part. After that it was for David to 
act. He has received the call ; now let him obey 
it. He has been sent for; let him come. He did 
come, and God help all these young people to do 
likewise. 

The Church extends her hands ; come and clasp 
them. God calls you; O, hear His voice and obey. 
The minister pleads with you; regard his pleadings, 
I beseech you, and be saved. 

This being the last lecture in the course, I feel 
that I must plead with you with more tenderness, 
and more earnestness, and a greater spirit of im- 
portunity than ever before. God help me ! 

O, I want Samuel's spirit for this occasion — his 
spirit of determination — his spirit of self-sacrifice. 
"Send and fetch him/' he said, "for we will not 
sit down till he come." The feast is ready, but it 
must wait. The guests are anxious, but they must 
restrain themselves. The flesh may weary, but we 
have important business to transact, and we must 
finish it. We 're going to make a king to-day ; 
stand aside all other concerns until this has been 
done. "Send and fetch him; for we will not sit 
down till he come." O, what a spirit! 



322 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

Such a spirit of earnest importunity may God 
give to me while I plead with these young people 
to embrace religion. Such a spirit, in their labors 
with youth, may all God's ministers have, and all 
Christian people everywhere throughout the world ! 

Let me remind you first, my young friends, 
that religion is just what you need. 

We all need it, but the young especially. Youth 
is high spirited and inclined to be fractious. It 
needs guidance and restraint, and the Christian re- 
ligion supplies these requisites. It not only teaches 
us the necessity fbr self-restraint, but it gives us the 
power to restrain ourselves. It is not simply a 
bridle in the mouth, telling us the way we should 
go, but it is a principle in the soul which inclines 
us to walk in the right way, and makes the pursuit 
of that path easy and pleasant. 

Youth is inexperienced and ignorant; very lia- 
ble, therefore, to be imposed upon. Added to this 
it has crafty enemies at its heels who are using all 
their arts to lead it astray. It was the remark of 
Philip Melancthon, the coadjutor of Luther, that 
he soon found that Old Satan was more than a 
match for young Philip. So every young person 
must discover, and if they cope with this arch- 
adversary single-handed, they are sure to be over- 



IN THE CHURCH. 323 

come. None of us can do this with success; not 
even the strongest and wisest; much less can those 
hope to do so who are just enteriug life's arena, and 
whose youthful impulses mark them as the natural 
prey, and make them the easy victims, of those 
whose business it is to deceive and destroy. No, 
my young friends; your only safety, your only hope 
is in religion. We need the grace of God at every 
period ; in youth, however, the most of all. 

Youth is the time when, in numerous important 
matters, the prerogative of choice must be exer- 
cised. It is pre-eminently the valley of decision. 
John Ruskin, says : " The whole period of youth is 
one essentially of formation. There is not an hour 
in it but is trembling with destinies." Strong lan- 
guage, but none too strong. At almost every step 
in youth we make some kind of a choice, and do, 
or leave undone, something which has its effect, for 
good or ill, upon our habits and character. The 
atmosphere in which we move does, indeed, " trem- 
ble with destinies." Just as in the ascent of the 
Alps, your guide tells you, at certain places, to step 
carefully, and to not speak above a whisper, lest 
the motion' or sound should disturb, and precipitate 
upon you, the immense bodies of snow which hang 
by so slender a hold to the summits above, so, as 



324 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

their religious guide, must we admonish these young 
people of the tremendous consequences hanging 
upon their movements. 

The only adequate preparation for this perilous 
journey is to have your feet shod with the prepa- 
ration of the Gospel, and your goings directed by 
the kindly and unerring hand of that Guide Divine 
who never yet lost a pilgrim, nor allowed one to be 
injured, and of whom it is promised that He shall 
guide us with his counsel, and afterwards receive us 
to glory. 

In other words, we can only be prepared to de- 
termine aright the other matters which call for 
decision, when we have made the great decision; 
can choose safely and wisely within the other de- 
partments of life — the social, the intellectual, and 
the moral — only when we have taken a decisive 
stand upon the subject of religion. Our Savior 
fully understood this. Hence his urgent entreaty 
to young people to seek God's kingdom first. 
Hence, too, his warm commendation of the younger 
of the two sisters of Lazarus, who had started out 
by choosing the good part, and who was seeking the 
preparation she needed for future decisions and du- 
ties by waiting and worshiping at the feet of the 
One whom she now called Master and Lord. 



IN THE CHURCH. 325 

And if youth is the choosing period, so is it also 
the period when we get our growth and develop- 
ment. In regard to the body, if it does not grow 
in youth, it never grows. Stunted and dwarfed then 
it remains so to the end. Nor much less true is this 
of the mind; for those whose mental training is de- 
ferred to a later period are never what they would 
have been had the drill and education occurred 
when the faculties were elastic and the mind was 
feeling out, like the vine in the Spring-time, for 
something upon which to sustain itself. Who does 
not know, too, that these same principles apply to 
the character and the soul ? How can there be a 
proper development of these in the direction of 
goodness if they are allowed first to grow in sin, 
and are not started in right grooves until the habits 
are settled and the life is established in worldliness? 

Ah, my young friends, if the sun does not dispel 
the mists pretty early in the morning, you may look 
with reasonable certainty for a foggy day ; and so 
will the day of your lives have in it more or less of 
gloom and moral obscuration if the mists and fogs 
of unbelief and sin be not early dissipated by the 
Sun of righteousness ! 

Failing to become Christians in youth, you will 

never be such Christians as you might have become 

28 



326 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

had you started at the right time. You will al- 
ways, in that case, for instance, carry a heavy bur- 
den of regret upon your hearts. It is true that 
God wipes the record of our sins from His own 
book of remembrance, but he does not erase the 
recollection of them from the human memory. With 
all reverence we say it, He can not do this. Nor 
can He save us altogether from the consequences of 
our sins. He takes the guilt and condemnation 
away, and He washes us from the moral defile- 
ment incurred. But the results of sin, in faculties 
dwarfed, in prospects blighted, in reputation im- 
paired, and in the terrible power which evil habits 
may have acquired — these, in large measure, must 
follow us to our graves. 

The steed not properly broken when a colt is 
never safe. He goes well most of the time, per- 
haps, but if you trust him very far you ? 11 rue it. 
The plant whose development was checked by a 
chill atmosphere when it was a mere slip never does 
well. It is always diminutive, always sickly, always 
inferior in every respect. The bent twig never 
makes a straight tree. Its early deformity is visible 
to the end. Probably, too, that twist in it is a 
point of weakness which, some night, when the 
wind is stronger than usual, may cause it to lie low, 



IN THE CHURCH. 327 

while the other trees, not so injured, resist the storm, 
and are found the next clay nodding their good 
mornings to the sky as if nothing had happened. 

O, young people, this is the time to begin to 
serve God — this is the time to put the yoke of 
Christ upon your necks, and to break yourselves in 
for lives of usefulness. Really it is now or never in 
this matter. This is the time to put yourselves into 
wholesome environments — now, while the nature is 
sensitive and the will plastic — now, when a good 
atmosphere is so essential, and when a bad one, 
as in the case of the tender plant, may prove to 
be so harmful and ruinous. Or, comparing you to 
trees, this, we insist, is the time when you most 
need to have guards thrown about you. 

It is the young sapling that men prop up and 
shelter from the storm's sweep, or the beast's tread ; 
the stout oak does not need these protections. So is 
it in youth, at the period when we are so weak that 
our very weakness is a standing invitation, as it 
were, for the enemies of virtue to come and step 
upon us — that we need, infinitely more than at any 
other period, such guards as the Christian Church 
throws about us — the inspiring influences of Chris- 
tian fellowship, the sheltering arms of Christian 
sympathy, and, above all, that gracious renewal of 



328 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

strength which can only be obtained by waiting at 
the altars of Christian devotion. 

Having urged that religion is just what you 
need, we now go farther, and present it as the very 
thing which your souls crave. 

You may not think it, but you are thirsting for 
salvation as certainly as that wounded hart pants 
for the water-brook. You 've learned already that 
there are many disappointments in life, and you are 
looking for something which will prove to be all that 
it promises to be. You begin to suspect, too, that 
professed friends can not always be relied upon, and 
you crave a friendship that has no limitations and 
no uncertainties. You ; ve learned even this soon 
that all material things are smitten with the blight 
of decay. You see the beautiful flowers droop and 
die, the gorgeous Summer fade into the Fall, the day 
of brightness darken into a fearful night, and you 
wonder if there is no beauty that survives this gen- 
eral wreck. You 'ye seen the rose-bloom on the 
youthful cheek of your companion, and as you 'ye 
looked in fond admiration, you've seen that same 
cheek pale under the blighting touch of illness. 
Then there was a sad farewell, and the vision of 
loveliness vanished into the grave. All this you 'ye 
seen, and your soul hungers, as you walk amid 



IN THE CHURCH. 329 

these fleeting shadows, for something substantial 
and enduring. 

You find tears gathering occasionally in your 
eyes, and you wonder if there is not a hand some- 
where that can effectually stay them. You've had 
many a heartache, and you *ve learned enough of 
life to expect that this will be a common experi- 
ence, and your nature cries out for an antidote to 
these sorrowful feelings. You have lofty hopes and 
large ambitions, too, and you want a sphere to 
match these — the opportunity to do something, and 
the assurance that your name and work will live. 
Above all, does your nature crave happiness. You 
can not help feeling that you were born to be 
happy, and these feelings, like bird-wings, carry 
you out and up in search of this bright ideal. You 
seek it everywhere. You try all fountains. You 
taste all so-called delights. What you want is true 
satisfaction, rest from disquiet, shelter from life's 
storms, joy in spite of its sorrows — substantial, en- 
during happiness. 

O, young friends, shall I tell you what this 
means ? Shall I tell you what it is that your soul 
craves so earnestly? You may not know it; you 
may be so perverse as not to believe it, when this 
statement is made; but the fact is, that that youth- 



330 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

fill nature of yours is crying out for God, for the 
living God, its creator, and the only being who can 
satisfy it. 

What the child wants, in its hunger and fretful- 
ness, is the warm embrace and pure nourishment 
which only the mother can give, and so, what these 
immortal souls need is God ; nor can they be truly 
happy until they find Him. 

You want stability amid universal fluctuation 
and decay. Here it is in the Christian religion, so 
happily symbolized by an immovable rock in a 
storm-tossed ocean. You want friendship that 
never betrays or grows cold. Here it is in His 
friendship who is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever. You want an experience that never dis- 
appoints. Seek then a religious experience, for not 
only shall this prove to be all it promises, but your 
opinion of it will be, after a fair trial, that the half 
was not told you. Something this which disap- 
points not in the greatest extremities, as Bishop 
Janes found when he came to die, and left, as his 
dying testimony, the sublime assurance, " I am not 
disappointed." 

You want a balm for aching hearts and flowing 
tears. Find that, also, in this religion, for the very 
first public announcement of its Divine author was, 



IN THE CHURCH. 331 

" Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com- 
forted." A sphere of work you want to match 
those high ambitions and towering hopes. Here is 
work which the angels would be glad to do. Here 
is an opportunity to become co-workers with the Al- 
mighty himself, in the redemption of the race, and 
in the peopling of paradise with redeemed spirits. 
Here, too, within the realm of religion, will you 
find a sure guaranty, such as you can find in no 
other sphere, that your labors shall not be in vain, 
for the promise is, " He that goeth forth and weep- 
eth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come 
again Avith rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with 
him." Here, too, will you find abundant recom- 
pense for your labors, for " God is not unjust to 
forget your work of faith and labor of love." On 
the contrary, He will remember it, and reward it, 
for as Christ said, " There is no man that hath left 
houses or land, or wife or children." — no man 
that hath made any kind of sacrifice for my sake 
and the Gospel's — " but he shall receive a hundred- 
fold in this life, and in the world to come life 
everlasting." 

Again, therefore, my young friends, do I appeal 
to you, and the more I reflect upon your needs and 
perils, the more do I feel like saying with Samuel, 



332 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

Send and fetch them. We must have these young 
people. Spirit of God, send and fetch them ! Fath- 
ers and mothers, send and fetch them ! Teachers in 
the Sabbath school, send and fetch them ! Officials 
of the Church, and private members as well, send 
and fetch them! We can not take No for an an- 
swer. We must have these young people in the 
Church. We must get them within the circle of 
moral safety. We must secure them for God, or 
the Devil and the world will soon have them. O, 
send and fetch them, send and fetch them ; and, as 
Samuel said in the case of David, Let us not sit 
down, let us not cease our pleadings nor relax our 
efforts, until they come. 

Come now, my young friends. It is not per- 
fectly convenient, I know, and it never will be. 
The only man in the Scriptures who made up his 
mind to wait for a convenient season was Felix, 
and the strong suspicion is that he perished. If it 
is inconvenient now, how much more so will it be 
after a while? You talk of difficulties, but will 
not these difficulties multiply as time rolls on and 
the cares and occupations of life increase ? We know 
it is not convenient ; but it is more convenient than 
it will ever be again. We are aware that it will 
cost you an effort; but it will cost you a greater 



IN THE CHURCH. 333 

effort if you delay until some future time, and, 
possibly, if you delay very long, you may find it 
not only difficult to break away, but impossible. 

O, come now. Make up your mind to serve 
God at once. Alexander, being asked how he had 
conquered the world, replied : " By not delaying." 
Here, young friends, is how you may conquer two 
worlds, this and the next. 

There is danger in delaying. We talk some- 
times of people taking their lives in their hands, 
and we are horrified at the idea; but those who 
put off this all-important matter of coming to the 
Savior, take their souls in their hands, and are in 
danger of losing them at any moment. This, too, 
not simply because at any moment death may put 
an end to their probation and summon them to 
judgment, but because every moment of delay in- 
creases the difficulties in our path, plunges us deeper 
into the mire of indecision, weakens our will power, 
grieves the spirit of God, puts an additional link 
into the chain of habit, violates the moral sense, and 
hardens the heart. 

" Do n't talk to me," said an aged man to a 

minister, "don't talk to me on this subject. My 

heart is like a stone, and has been for years. Go to 

the young; go to the young." 

29 



334 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

O, I am pleading with the young at this 
time. Thank God for the privilege, and may I not 
plead in vain! Your hearts are not hard; your 
consciences are not seared. Your souls are not yet 
like adamant. They will be after a while, prob- 
ably, if you continue to resist the Spirit of God and 
the calls of His ministers. In middle life these 
souls of yours will be like the gravel walk, after 
thousands of pedestrians have trampled it, and when 
these, with the changes of atmosphere it has seen, 
have made it like stone to the steps. 

Now, however, your souls are soft and pliable, 
as that walk was at first, when it yielded to the 
pressure and showed the impress of every foot that 
touched it. Yes, this is the tender, the impressible 
age with you. Surely, therefore, it is now, if ever, 
that the claims of God, the convictions of religious 
duty, and the thought of a coming judgment, should 
impress you. 

Think, too, of the folly of delay. How supremely 
foolish in David to have rejected the call of Sam- 
uel; for, see what he called him from, and look at 
the dignities to which he exalted him. He was out 
in the sheepfold ; God wanted him at the head ol 
the nation. His brow was encircled with the com- 
mon Oriental turban; God wanted a crown upon 



IN THE CHURCH. 335 

it. In his youthful hand was a shepherd's crook; 
God wanted him to wield a scepter. He was now 
the son of Jesse merely, and the youngest and least 
thought of at that ; God wanted him to be His son 
and the king of His chosen people. O, wonderful 
exchange ! 

And is not this just how it will be in your case? 
You talk about what you will have to give up. 
You act as if you would make sacrifices in coming 
out for God; but the facts are just the opposite 
from this. Far from being losers, we are infinite 
gainers by such a course. We give up rags and 
get the white raiment of righteousness. We doff 
the turban of servitude and put on the crown that 
makes us princes. In exchange for the homely 
crook of self-will, we get a golden rod which sym- 
bolizes sovereignty over self and rulership within 
the kingdom of morals. From the sheepfold of 
earthly indulgence we are lifted into the purer at- 
mosphere, the loftier occupations, and the richer, 
rarer delights in which those revel who sit in heav- 
enly places with Christ Jesus. 

After awhile, too, we shall come into actual 
possession of a throne. Xot immediately, any more 
than did David. He had to wait, to fight, to 
struggle, to brave perils, to prove himself a hero, 



336 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

and a conqueror ; then the coronation and the ruler- 
ship. So in our case. We, too, must wait and 
fight and conquer. As surely, however, as we do 
so, shall we come at last, just as he did, into possession 
of our full dignities and rewards, the immutable 
promise of David's greater son being, " To him that 
overcometh will I give to sit down with me on my 
throne, even as I also have overcome and am set 
down with my Father upon His Throne." 

O, come, my young friends. Come and be lifted 
up. Come and be dignified. Come and be hon- 
ored. Come and be made happy. We call you, 
remember, not to sobs, but songs; not to tears, but 
joys; not to slavery, but freedom ; not to long faces, 
and doleful feelings, but to countenances made 
radiant with divine love, to hearts filled with joy 
unspeakable, to lives beautified with the beauty of 
holiness, and made fragrant for ever with the odor 
of good deeds. 

Let it be borne in mind, too, that upon the 
same sanctions and in the same appeals by which we 
call upon you to be Christians, do we call you 
to come, without delay, into the fellowship of the 
Church. 

If any ask, Can we not be Christians without 
being Church members, we answer emphatically, 



IN THE CHURCH. 337 

No. Our Church relation is the visible badge of 
our discipleship. The Church is God's agency for 
the reclamation of the world. How, therefore, can 
any one love God, and manifest a proper zeal for 
His cause while holding aloof from this institution ? 
Every soldier in the national army has a military 
enrollment and belongs to some company. So every 
true soldier of King Jesus will be sure to be en- 
rolled in some Church. Moreover, you need the 
Church. We all need it, but young people especially 
need it. You need the Church for the same reasons 
that you need the restraints and helps of a religious 
life; and, really, the Church services and the life of 
religion in the soul are so intimately related that 
you can not dissever them with either consistency 
or safety. 

The Church is a necessity to you, also, because 
it is the only institution which makes a specialty of 
Christian work. The Church gives you something 
to do, and that, above all things, is what you require. 
It is only, in fact, by being active that you can keep 
out of the hands of the Wicked One, or can resist 
successfully the blandishments of the world. 

Again, therefore, we say, with Samuel — Send 
and fetch them — send and fetch these young people. 
Bring them to the Savior ; bring them within the 



338 YOUNG PEOPLE. 

pale of the Church. Set them to work in the 
Church. They need such work, and the Church 
needs it. They are strong, they are hopeful, they 
possess enthusiasm and courage. Bring them in, 
that they may find in the Church an ample sphere 
for these endowments, and that both the Church 
and humanity may get the benefit of their gifts. 

Come, my young friends, come in Life's Golden 
Morning, and with your gaze fixed upon the rising 
sun, make a solemn, blessed, heavenly covenant 
to serve God till the shadows fall, and the sun 
goes down, and the day closes. Thus shall the day 
of your existence never close, for when its sun sets 
on earth, it shall rise immediately, more effulgent 
than before, over the hills of immortal glory, ush- 
ering in a new day which shall never decline, — a 
day which shall know neither evening shadows nor 
noontide heats, but shall afford you only the soft 
radiance, the sweet, fresh flowers, the ample, restful 
shade, and the unwearying delights of a Golden 
Morning for ever and ever ! As the poet so beau- 
tifully says : 

No night shall be in heaven ! No gathering gloom 
Shall o'er that glorious landscape ever come ; 
No tears shall fall in sadness o'er those flowers, 
That breathe their fragrance through celestial bowers. 



IN THE CHURCH. 



339 



No night shall be in heaven ! No dreadful hour 
Of mental darkness, or the tempter's power ; 
No night shall be in heaven ! But endless noon ; 
No fast declining sun, nor waning moon. 

No night shall be in heaven ! No darkened room 
No bed of death, nor silence of the tomb ; 
But breezes, ever fresh with love and truth, 
Shall brace the frame with an Immortal Youth. 

TTell, too, may we add in closing : 

No night shall be in heaven ! 0, had I faith 
To rest in what the faithful Witness saith, 
That faith should make all present darkness flee, 
And leave no night, henceforth, on earth to me. 




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